


The Void

by KeyWolf25888



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America Steve Rogers/Modern Bucky Barnes, Kidnapping, M/M, Not Captain America: The Winter Soldier Compliant, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-07
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-24 01:27:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 96,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19713505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KeyWolf25888/pseuds/KeyWolf25888
Summary: Steve has woken up to a world that doesn’t need him any more – that replaced him as Captain America, and has forgotten about him. Watch him try to live life as a civilian, and navigate a relationship with a man who has no idea of his true identity – until, at least, his old life comes knocking.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I've spent the past couple of days wavering between 'not all of this is terrible' and 'i probably should have dropped out of this because it's no good'
> 
> Anyway, I've been working on this fic since March, so it should definitely be better than it is, but I don't have the time to make it any better
> 
> My plan is to post approx. 2 chapters a day until the end of posting for the shrunkyclunks bb
> 
> And I don't have any art for this despite it being for a bb because the artist that claimed it just kinda... never contacted me, so I've got nothing in that front

As Steve sat down, Fury smiled at him, wide and toothy. Steve had always thought that he seemed rather like a cat when he did - like he was assessing Steve, waiting to pounce.

"What do you have for me today?" It might have been more of a struggle for Steve to keep his voice even if he hadn't had so much practice at it.

Fury looked down at the file in front of him - an empty gesture, Steve knew, and yet he was never sure whether he appreciated it or not. "Nothing this month, I’m afraid.” The same words, repeated month after month.

The dance continued though – Steve shook his head and smiled sadly, as though he was actually surprised by this news. “Such a shame.”

Fury offered him a handshake as he stood up, as he often did. It was just another part of their ritual, another piece in the puzzle. It was nothing more than a formality – something they did to pretend like things weren’t wildly skewed out of Steve’s favor.

The squeak of their chairs was harsh against the floor, and part of Steve couldn’t help but wonder whether that was just another of his tactics, a way to make visitors feel uncomfortable. It probably was.

"I’ll see you next month?" Their meetings were scheduled far in advance - Steve knew that he had no choice in that - but he had to keep up the pretense of it not bothering him at all.

Fury nodded - and that was the end of it. Walking out of the room, Steve felt the tension creep back into his shoulders - he hated walking around the triskelion by himself, given the stupid disguise he had to wear, but there was nothing for it. (Much as he knew it was an odd stance to have when being in Fury’s office was the preferable option, being able to talk to someone who actually knew who he was was a real boon nowadays.)

Closing the door softly behind him, Steve leaned against the wall beside the door. The corridor wasn't a particularly pleasant place to wait - the walls were a dark grey which sucked all the light and the happiness from this place, and from experience he knew that if he waited around for too long, they'd send someone to escort him away. If that wasn't humiliating, he didn't know what was.

Fury’s office was in an area that only the top few levels could access - it was the one thing that tempted him to just wait a minute before facing the rest of the building again.

Taking a few deep breaths, it slowly dawned on him that the voices he could hear talking quietly were coming from Fury’s office, not the floor below like he'd thought. And with that realization... His brain couldn't tune it out - without consciously trying to, his brain began to tune into the conversation, to make out words.

"... Do you not think that the Captain would benefit from doing a few publicity trips?" It was an unfamiliar voice, presumably someone talking to director Fury.

Steve frowned. Why were they talking about him? He'd never done a publicity trip - at least, he'd not done one this century. Instinctively he began to lean towards the wall, despite knowing that his hearing didn't work like that, that it wouldn't help him in his eavesdropping. (He chose to ignore the part of him that sounded a lot like Sarah Rogers that was currently screaming at him about how rude it was to listen in on other people's conversations.)

Then Fury’s voice replied. "I'm not so sure that's a good idea. You remember what happened the last time he did one - Tony stark decided it should be a joint avengers event and crashed the show. If we do do something about him, we need to factor stark in somehow - find something else for him to be doing, perhaps."

Steve froze. They weren't talking about him at all.

"You're right - maybe we should consider -" The man stopped talking, and Steve realized that he'd taken a loud step backwards, the noise echoing in the corridor. "What was that?"

Realizing that he was on the verge of being caught listening in on a conversation which, as it turned out, he wasn't even the subject of, he briskly turned and began walking in the direction he should have to begin with.

Despite knowing that this body couldn't get sick any more, an uneasy feeling came over him as he made his way out, his head bowed in shame.

It wasn't even the eavesdropping which had unnerved him. He had never particularly enjoyed being reminded that Fury only referred to him as Captain America out of 'respect', and not because the world thought of him as that man any more. No - an unknown man had taken on that role, and Steve was left to flounder, reduced to asking Fury if there was anything he could do, anything that his... abilities would be good for.

Mostly Steve tried to stay away from thinking about him, and the other people he fought with. He'd done his best to stay informed to begin with, on the off chance that Fury needed him to step in. Oh, how innocent he'd been then, how blind to how things worked now. Sure, he had been reluctant to suit up back then - there had been a reason he'd told them he was tired of it all - but if the world had needed it? Sure, he would have done it, and gladly too.

And yet here he was, wading through crowds of agents in a top-secret facility, and not one of them knew who he was.

Even when aliens - like, actual aliens, from outer space, the creatures from comics he'd read as a child - had attacked the city, he'd been relegated to the sidelines. Fury had said nothing to him at the time, yet he'd had the news channels on the entire time, watching as the 'Avengers' heroically saved the world. Without him. His phone had been right next to him the whole time, with full battery and signal - and he'd received not one message.

It had been a stark and saddening reminder of what his life here represented, and had marked the turning point in his attitude towards what he was doing here. Not only had nobody thought to ask him to help out, but nobody had been concerned with his safety, either. He had sat in his Shield issued apartment in New York, knowing that if he died here, nobody aside from the people he would tentatively call coworkers would care that he was gone. He knew nobody here, having spent so much of his spare time trying to be prepared for the worst.

And when the worst had happened, it had all been for naught.

After that point, he'd not been able to stand seeing any mention of the Avengers. It felt like a poor parody of the life that he'd have been living, had he been able to join them. (And personally? He didn't even think that the new Cap suit looked any good.)

Any decent mood he might have had today had been stripped away by hearing that conversation. Admittedly, it was all his fault for listening in, but that didn't mean he had to be happy about it.

Scowling, he stepped into the elevator that would take him down to the ground level so he could finally get out of this building. He could never really get used to this particular one - he'd been able to adjust to most other things, but a glass elevator that looked out over the city? He might have been fine jumping out of a plane, but something about this elevator always put him on edge. Plus the trip all the way down always took ages - with so many floors to stop on, sometimes Steve thought it would be faster to just run down the stairs. Several agents got in with him. Whether it was a reaction to the black cloud surrounding him or to his size, Steve didn't know, but none of them looked particularly happy to be around him.

Weird.

Pulling his hoodie a little tighter around him, Steve tried to ignore its rough texture on his skin and pretended like everything was fine.

The whole trip down, he kept his eyes fixed outside, on the trees which slowly grew larger as he got closer to them. Part of him really didn't trust these agents one bit, and he didn’t want to risk antagonizing them. Not that he was worried about his safety - not any more, at least - but he didn't want to have to use his full strength on people who didn't know who he was. That would just be opening a whole can of worms that Fury would have to deal with, and Steve knew that he would get in a lot of trouble for it.

By the time he finally reached the ground floor, his feet were practically numb - not from standing so long, but having various people stand on them on their way in and out of the elevator. He didn't know what it was, but somehow things like that always happened to him. (Maybe his 'disguise' of hunching down and trying to seem smaller than he was worked a little too well)

As he made his way through the entrance hall, movement caught his eye, enough to make him turn his head to look at it. A team of agents (Steve didn't know which - he had never been made privy to those kinds of details) were jogging towards the exit, weapons at the ready. Steve couldn't deny the tug of jealousy in his stomach at the sight - that could have been him, in another life.

Nobody else in the room seemed bothered at the sight, though, and Steve knew that he couldn't afford to cause a scene by staring too much. There was no other choice but to keep walking, to go about his day like he had a job to be doing like everyone else. The fact that his 'job' right now was to get back to New York was beside the point.

**

Steve had woken up tired.

His first words, when he saw a masked face hovering over him, were, "I don’t want to do that again."

It had been easy for those that had seen it happen to assume that he'd been talking about the crash of the Valkyrie. That he was making a joke. And he just... Hadn't had the heart to correct them.

**

“Is there anything else I can get you?”

Steve squirmed, and shook his head. “No, thank you.” He did his best to never be anything but polite to these people, but the air hostesses never seemed to pick up on how much he disliked being in these planes.

Nodding, the woman turned away, and Steve slumped in his seat again. It wasn’t the plane itself that put him on edge – he’d grown used to them long ago. No, it was the opulence of these particular ones, the cream seats and the constant offers of champagne that made him feel uncomfortable with this whole thing.

No matter how many times he told Fury that he was perfectly okay with taking the train, or even with driving himself to Washington, Fury always insisted that he should get flown back and forth. Every time, the reasoning was that Steve ‘needed the protection’. As if he didn’t spend most of his time without anyone from Shield around, being totally fine without them.

Despite the whole thing being completely different from any of the military planes he’d been in during the war – he couldn’t even have imagined being somewhere like this, even during the time he spent touring – it was the time he spent feeling most like Captain America since the beginning of this whole thing, since he woke up here.

That fact just made him sad.

Looking out the window, the skyline of New York approached, letting him know that he was getting close to being home. For the most part, it was a familiar and welcome sight, something which reminded him of how much he loved this city. It wasn’t entirely the same, of course, but the new skyline had become just as much a sign of home as the old had been.

The thing which made his heart shrivel a little was the brief glimpse of Stark Tower. Just like its owner, it was ostentatious, and part of Steve couldn’t help but resent it a little. While on the ground, Steve found the place much easier to ignore, but from the air? The knowledge of the ultra-fancy plane thing that Iron Man had that he sometimes flew around made Steve wonder what it would have been like if this plane was heading to stark tower, if he was one of Stark’s friends.

Even knowing that the idea was ridiculous didn’t make Steve stop wondering about it. Sometimes he just couldn’t stop the images in his head of him in the place of his replacement, saving the world alongside the other ‘Avengers’ (even if he thought that name was dumb). For a second he allowed himself to indulge in that fantasy, in the idea of Fury actually utilizing him after he came out of the ice.

But as the plane swung away from that part of the city, Steve was pulled back into reality, reminded that no, he was headed to a small, Shield owned airfield instead, where a cab would take him home. It was all very convoluted, and Steve sighed, resting his head against the wall of the plane.

He may as well get a nap in before getting back. There were a good 15 minutes before they were due to land – he could get back some of his strength in that time.

(He knew that sleeping wouldn’t actually help him to avoid his problems, but it didn’t stop him from doing it.)

**

Something about the experience of wearing a baseball cap with his own insignia on it and _not_ getting mobbed was slightly unnerving.

As he sat at his regular table, sipping his coffee, he couldn’t help but wonder if any of the people crammed in here even suspected him in the slightest (just because he knew they probably didn’t didn’t mean he couldn’t speculate, okay), whether they even think of him as a candidate for the role… if there was anything he’d learned about this time period, it was that everyone was a cynic.

Still, it did allow him to people watch. Since Fury single-handedly made sure that he was out of a job for most of the time, it left him with plenty of time for himself, to explore to his heart’s content. After all, if he didn’t go out of his own volition, he would likely never have cause to leave his apartment – and that would probably be worse, on the whole.

Besides – he had more money now than he knew what to do with – why not waste it on expensive coffee? Now was a time for doing things that he’d never been able to before.

Well, no, it wasn’t entirely true. It was the case now, sure, but he’d begun the habit as something else entirely – an opportunity to learn about the modern world by watching others go about their day. It had been more useful than he'd like to admit – to watch them using their devices, and see how they interacted with each other... It was more illuminating than any of the attempts at 'integration classes' they'd given him at the start of his time here.

He took another sip. His drink was beginning to get a bit lukewarm, but that was okay. Once upon a time it would have been reason to gulp it down, to get his money’s worth on it, especially since he would have had little time to actually drink it in. But, when you had all the time and money in the world? Well, he could afford to not bother to finish his drink, and buy a new one.

Some of the conversations people were having were helpful. Others… not so much. Steve had learned more about a family called the Kardashians than he ever thought he would. The insane levels that ‘celebrity’ went to nowadays was so strange, when you could spend your whole day looking at and watching a singular person.

Of course, there was always the fact that snippets of conversations didn't always make sense either. During the less busy times, when customers could come in quickly, most of the time Steve had no idea what they were talking about. Most of these conversations concerned tv shows and movies that he hadn't got around to seeing yet - not that he'd managed to work out what some of them were.

Aside from the things that he could claim were 'research', in itself it was interesting to see the ebbs and flows of people into the shop. So long as he kept buying drinks the staff wouldn't move him - and some days he indulged himself and stayed in there for a while. (He did try to limit those times though - he didn't want to come off as a stalker.)

By the time it reached lunchtime, the crowds began to fill out again. Until now there had been a lull, and Steve had had a small reprice from the wall of sound which assaulted him in confined spaces like this. He'd been almost alone in the room - but with more people coming in, he couldn't avoid it forever.

A pair of teenage girls sat down at the table next to him, with Steve facing away from them. That made him squirm a little - it was one thing to vaguely listen to everyone's conversations, but to have two people about to force their conversation on him? He would have no choice but to listen to theirs.

"...don’t you think he's so hot though?" One of the girls said. Steve wrinkled his nose - he was sure whomever these girls were talking about was good looking, but he wasn't sure he was going like hearing about it for the next half hour.

"If he wasn't so hot, then how would he manage to get so much action?" Her friend argued.

"He doesn't any more though - you know they all say he's with his assistant now. He's like, settled down."

Steve took a sip of his drink. He couldn’t be entirely sure that his suspicions were correct, but it almost sounded like they were talking about....

"But Tony spent so long getting photographed with other women!" The first girl exclaimed. "He’s such a playboy - and besides, it's part of that that makes him hot. I..."

Suspicions confirmed. Steve did his best to tune them out, to listen to the more interesting conversation across the room about the state of the economy.

Eventually though, he found that he couldn't concentrate on either conversation. Hand still gripping his now cold cup of half-drunk coffee, he couldn't help but think about the fact that he couldn't seem to escape mention of the Avengers. When the team had first formed, when he still thought he might have a shot at joining, he had thought it was a temporary measure, something which would disband once its usefulness was over. And of course, naturally the public had loved them, with superhero mania taking over the young people in the world. (Some part of Steve knew that the government was a little less thrilled with them, but there was only so much he could know about it when he wasn’t kept in the loop by Shield.)

Some part of Steve thought that perhaps it was a good thing after all, that he wasn’t part of the team. The amount of scrutiny that they were subject to was perhaps even greater than that he’d had to face during his time in the army – when you could choose to say something mean about someone from thousands of miles away and have them see it minutes later? That seemed like a lot of power to have, and Steve didn’t think he’d like being on the receiving end of it. He did have social media accounts that he’d made when he was first introduced to the technology. They’d said that people found it weird nowadays if you didn’t have at least one of them, and it was common for anyone you connected with to want to be ‘friends’ on them – although Steve had quickly found that he didn’t have much opportunity for adding anyone on either of them, simply for lack of talking to people.

Beginning to feel a little cramped in the small café, trapped in here with reminders of his failures, he stood, picking up his cup to throw it in the trash on the way out. He wasn’t an animal, after all.

The weather outside was cold, the chill nipping at his face and hands. Burying his hands in his pockets, Steve walked along the sidewalk. Most of the time when he was walking, he kept his head down, and right now was no different.

Admittedly, now that the weather was turning colder, he had more of an excuse to have the lower half of his face buried in the top of his hoodie. (Hoodies were great, and warm, and he honestly didn’t know how he’d managed to deal without them.) Of course, there was another aspect to his need to have his face hidden away. Despite knowing, in the most painful way possible, that nobody knew who he was any more, part of him was still paranoid that perhaps someone would recognize him on the streets. Being recognized when he was just trying to go about his day was the worst part of being a ‘celebrity’ back in the day, and he went to lengths greater than perhaps he should have in order to prevent it from happening again.

He knew that the way he looked as he walked made him appear smaller than he was – and that was good, it was by design. It kept him from recognition, as well as from being noticed in general. (plus, hunching over like he tended to make the world feel smaller, more familiar. (Even if everything was different now.)

It was sort of sad, that he’d been here for long enough to know these things. The sheer routine of being here for… well, nearly a year, really made for a depressing thought about how much he’d actually achieved here.

Then again, it was nice to have enough time to himself to develop these kinds of routines. It was a bit of a catch-22, he just couldn’t win either way.

**

Hauling a bag of groceries into his building, Steve did his best to at least try to look like he was struggling with it. Full to bursting, it looked as though at any moment the plastic would split, and Steve didn’t want to seem like he thought it weighed nothing.

It had been two weeks since his last meeting with Fury, and he was back into his normal routine again.

There was something about having to go up so many steps that might have actually killed him in his old body. Even now, with his ability to go for days without sleep, he still didn’t find it fun to have to go so far just to get to his apartment – especially since the elevator was broken more often than not, and it was usually better to just make towards the stairs to begin with.

There were only a few people that he passed on the stairs. That wasn’t unusual – it wasn’t too busy at this time of day, and he may or may not have gone shopping at this time for that express purpose. The few times he did pass anyone, it was with disappointment that he saw that none of them were people he recognized – he was polite to them, he did his best to have some sort of interaction with them – but it was never enough, somehow.

Even as he tried to be nice to these strangers, some of them were just too absorbed in their phones, in their own thoughts, to pay him any attention as he passed. The ones that did notice him… well, he was never too sure whether he really wanted people like that noticing him at all. It was purely a problem that had cropped up after he received the serum, after his body became ‘worthy’ of others noticing. Their eyes lingered on his arms, his chest – yet rarely did they stray up to his face, show any interest in him as a person. It almost made him think that it would be easier for him to be in this time in his old body. (Usually with thoughts like this he tried to not think too deeply about the logic behind them, or it’d give him a headache.)

It was mostly strength of will which allowed him to reach his apartment and the top of the stairs without visibly showing how exhausted he was. Of course, he had to make some sort of show, on the off chance one of his neighbors saw him and thought it was suspicious that he wasn’t affected by it at all, but his solution was really to jump into his apartment as quickly as possible.

Stepping into his apartment, trying to juggle his keys and the bags, he slammed the door behind him. Perhaps it was a little loud, but then he'd had a long day, and he was glad to be home.

Taking a deep breath, he let go of the bags and took closed his eyes. Being outside could be stressful – there was just so much _going on_ , more so than ever before, he thought. In his childhood he’d thought that the city was a busy place, that people were constantly rushing around. That was still true now, but… to watch people doing that while also having their faces buried in their phones? It definitely added an extra level of impressiveness that anyone was able to fully get anything done.

It was strange, he sometimes thought. Being in his own apartment was nothing new to him – he’d been living by himself since he was 18, ever since his ma died. But he always seemed a little more lonely here, a little more detached from the place.

Despite the furnishings he’d got together, ones which according to the research he’d done were completely in line with today’s fashion, they didn’t really feel like _his_. He could appreciate the clean lines of the IKEA furniture, the fact that it was appealing to the eye… but there was no character in it. If he was being honest, it was part of the reason he didn’t like to spend time here if he could help it.

Moving quickly to the kitchen before his groceries thawed, Steve took a moment to boggle, for the thousandth time, at how amazing fridge freezers were. Truly, a modern miracle. Putting his things away, he knew he’d probably bought too much stuff for just him (and that was accounting for his huge appetite) just because he normally couldn’t be bothered to cook. It hadn’t bothered him when he was younger, somehow, but now it just felt sad to cook for one, and more often than not he ended up getting take out anyway.

Well, maybe this time he would force himself to. Even if his cooking skills were… sub-par at best. Living here really hadn’t actually managed to force his hand into getting any better at that, even with his ma’s disapproval hanging over his shoulder nagging him to try harder. It just didn’t matter to him that much overall, and he had to admit that he would pretty much eat anything he could make, so long as it was filling.

Only time would tell whether he would succeed.

**

Steve was startled out of his morose thoughts by the sound of knocking at his door. For a second he stayed still, the details of the situation not quite adding up in his mind – nobody ever came to visit him here.

Who could it possibly be?

The knocking came again, slightly louder this time. In Steve’s mind, it seemed more impatient, more like the person on the other side of the door was expecting something of him.

Springing into action, Steve crept silently across his floor. He’d been in this apartment for long enough to know where the creaky floorboards were, and he slipped through the room like a snake, like an eagle in the night. He had no idea what kind of danger might be facing him on the other side of that door, what they might want from him. Fury had promised him that nobody would be able to find out where he lived, nor would they have any idea who he was. That meant that whoever was getting his attention had got his information illegally – that didn’t bode well for him.

Leaning in slowly, Steve peered through the peephole.

Outside of his door stood a woman. She had light brown skin, and hair – and, most importantly, she looked excited about something. She was holding something just out of sight of the peephole, and Steve could see her biting her lip anxiously. Admittedly, she didn’t look like a terrorist. _But_ , as Steve well knew, that didn’t mean much. Still, he allowed some of the tension to drain out of his shoulders. If this woman genuinely wasn’t here to do him harm, he didn’t want to alarm her.

Suspicion still in the back of his mind, Steve opened the door slowly. The first thing he saw was a plastic tub being thrust at him, and he flinched back, blinking.

"Hi there!" The woman beamed at him, wide and trusting, and Steve's grip on the doorframe only grew stronger. (The faint creaking he could hear coming from it probably was a sign he should loosen up, but he couldn't help it.)

Steve nodded, hoping it looked casual. "Hello?" It came out as a question, which wasn't exactly intended, but as the box still hung between them, he figured he probably had good reason to be a little confused.

To her credit, the woman's smile didn't falter. "I'm Nadine! I just moved in next door, and I thought I'd bring these round as a neighbourly gift!"

Frantically Steve tried to remember if he'd heard anything about someone moving in. He just wasn't that involved in the 'neighborhood' of their apartment complex - in fact, he couldn't think of a single time when someone had announced to him that they were moving in or out. Familiar faces aside, he knew nobody here personally. It probably wasn't that surprising that he didn't know about this, he concluded.

(That fact didn't stray his mind from the knowledge that it made it all the more likely that this was an enemy of Shield targeting him.)

Taking a deep breath, Steve took the box with the (possibly) poisoned cookies. "Thanks," he said, pulling out all his acting skills. "So which apartment are you moving into?" (It was a long shot that this might trip her up, but who knows, she might be a really dumb villain.)

There was no change in Nadine’s demeanor – a sign in her favor. “I’m right next to you!” She sounded genuinely excited by this prospect, practically vibrating. “I’m in 8c.”

Well, that made it all the more surprising that Steve hadn’t heard a whisper of anyone moving in. How had he managed to miss the sounds of that?

Scrutinizing, Steve could only conclude that if she was an enemy of Shield, she was doing a very good job of hiding it. “Nice to meet you,” he said, not wanting to make things weird – either to make her uncomfortable, or to tip her off, whichever was relevant.

Shifting the box from one hand to another, he held out a hand for her to shake. She did so eagerly – Steve was slowly cluing into the fact that she just seemed happy to make friends in her new apartment.

Some part of the arrangement brought back memories of his childhood, of feeling close to the neighbors he’d grown up with. Back when he’d known exactly who lived where, and what all the gossip and drama was in the neighborhood, not just in his own building. That sense of community, of _belonging_ , was suddenly foreign to him in this new context. Not entirely unwelcome, but still odd.

“You too.” Nadine looked thrilled to have made a friend, and Steve found himself hoping, genuinely, that she was being truthful. Part of him could understand that enthusiasm, after going so long with only superficial contact. Perhaps if his first year in this century had been more like this… well, perhaps his whole time here would have been different.

"Oh - here's my number, by the way. Just in case you need - need anything." She tripped up on her words as she fumbled with a slip of paper from her pocket, slipping it to him quickly.

Steve had to say, the slip up seemed less worrying than it might have done a few minutes ago. Putting the paper into his own pocket, he said, "thanks. I will." The words felt odd in his mouth - Nadine seemed alright, but he still didn't know whether he would uphold his word about that.

"Bye!" Nadine waved minutely at him, wiggling her fingers as she turned around to leave.

Steve closed his door, an odd feeling overtaking him. He looked down at the box, still in his hands, and pried the lid off it. Part of him said that he should dump them, that the chance was too strong that they were poisoned in some way, that they weren't _safe_.

They looked so cutely homemade though, like love and care had been put into them. The cookies were stuffed full of chocolate chips, and... Steve just didn't have the heart to throw them away like that.

Maybe he could find a way to test them? How he'd do that he didn't know, but it might be a possibility.

Putting the lid back on, he went to put it in the kitchen. If he put it in a cupboard somewhere, he could forget about it for a while, and come back to it later. He didn't want to think about the possibility of Nadine being here to kill him - not when she'd been so sweet.

Listlessness swept over him now - what to do? Did he really want to go back to sitting on the couch and people watching?

As he walked back through into the living room, the large TV on the wall caught his eye. It had been one of the first things he bought, assured by Shield that it would seem strange if he didn't have one. Perhaps he had gone a little overboard with it (he was sure that nobody needed a screen that large outside of a movie theatre) but the poor kid inside him had felt a thrill of being able to buy one for himself.

Maybe there would be something worth watching on there. He hadn’t used it as much as he perhaps should – since he wasn’t really in here this much, he hadn’t had the time to really sit down and explore what he could find. But even then… he’d spent so much money on it that he should probably at least get some use out of it.

Shifting his favorite chair sideways a little so that he could face the television, he sat down and picked up the remote. He’d had a small amount of experience with these things as yet, but not much. The science behind it all was pretty much lost on him – all he really knew was the idea of pointing it and pressing the correct button. (Locating the correct button was going to be a different matter entirely – the whole thing was vaguely labelled, with symbols, contractions and colors comprising most of it.)

As always, the TV was a mess of color and action. It was something Steve had grown used to in the movie theatre, but it always seemed a little odd to have that kind of action right there in his front room.

Would this be a better use of his time than people watching? He didn’t know.

**

Steve stared at the row of shiny chrome in front of him. Well, to be fair, not all of them were silver, but the ones that he'd seen most people talking about, the ones that were the most expensive - they all were.

Not that he thought that price had to be an indicator of quality - but in his experience, it often did.

Would any of the store clerks mind if he touched them? The store was kinda empty, so it would be almost impossible to see by example - there was nobody around to watch.

Well, if they didn't want people to know what they felt like to hold they wouldn't put the display models out, right? They were wired down enough so they couldn't be stolen (or at least, not easily) but there was some give in there - Steve could only conclude that it was fine.

Picking one up, he noted that it had 'air' in the title. Was that an allusion to its function? Its weight? Its color? It was impossible to tell. Steve had gleaned from his small amount of research that most people cared a lot about a laptop's weight - most people not having the strength he did. Steve could appreciate that, he really could - but for him it just wasn't an issue.

Frowning, he turned it over and over in his hands. He didn't really know what he was supposed to be looking for, if he was honest - he'd only been able to do a small amount of research on the topic before the jargon began to melt his brain. Was this the sort of thing that most people in this century just knew about? Was he the only one here who couldn't tell what size ram he needed? Or what ram was in the first place (because he thought a laptop would have to be a little bigger to fit a whole sheep inside?)?

There were various square holes in the side of the laptop – Steve had figured out that you could put things in there, but exactly what they would do or how all that worked he wasn't entirely sure.

After all, wasn't the main part of a laptop the screen? Sort of like a really big phone? Setting it back down, he tried to have a go with the trackpad. In theory he knew it should work just like his phone screen (which he had got to grips with very quickly, thank you _very_ much) but somehow it was incredibly sensitive, sending the mouse careening around the screen like it was crashing into things.

It was amusing - but it wasn't convincing Steve that he should buy one. Despite his research about all this being thorough (or, as thorough as he could make it) he still didn't quite see why he needed one, aside from the whole 'fitting in' thing. Sometimes Shield sent him emails (more often than not he was an accidental recipient, something which he concluded must be quite commonplace), but on the rare times he actually needed to reply to one, his phone was just fine for sending the odd message.

He'd never actually had the chance to use a typewriter back when they were all the rage - he'd seen them, sure, and they'd been like shiny pieces of future, tantalizing and complex. Had he ever had the chance to try one out, he would have been incredibly slow at it, he was sure, but that didn't stop him from listing over the idea that maybe one day he'd learn to type.

His memories of typewriters were slightly fuzzy, them only ever having come up in person a few times, but even then he was pretty sure that the keyboard on these things was a little different.

Gingerly, he pressed the 'f' key. It didn't do anything, but the short press of the key downward felt quite unlike he'd ever seen a typewriter do.

Intriguing.

Noticing a member of staff coming his way, Steve hastily moved away from the laptop, walking a little ways down the aisle. He didn't want to look like a complete bumbling idiot, which he no doubt would. Pretending still like he knew what he was looking at, what he was looking for, he ran his hands along some of the other laptops there, noting the differences in thickness and texture that they had.

(The more he looked at them, and noticed their price tags, the more he struggled to reign in his reaction to spending a whole thousand dollars on anything. He'd had a similar reaction when he bought his television, but at least that had been big, had seemed worth the money. For something so small though, it seemed preposterous that anything could possibly be worth that much.)

Just as he was reaching the end of the aisle, the store clerk caught up with him. "Hey there," the man said, a full 'customer service' voice in play. "Can I help you?"

Steve paused before responding. It might be helpful to have the help of someone who clearly knew much more about this than him, who could actually describe its features without making his brain melt. But then - overall, perhaps it would be best to keep away from people who might get suspicious. Steve could just hear the conversation now:

The clerk: So what do you want to use your laptop for?

Steve: Oh, well I only want one because everyone else has them; I don't even really know what they do.

It would undoubtedly be a one-way ticket to the mental hospital.

Not trusting himself to not say the wrong thing, Steve smiled, shook his head, and said, "I’m just browsing, I’m good for now." If he changed his mind, he could always ask for help.

The store clerk seemed happy enough to leave him to it, and so Steve kept exploring.

He found himself wandering through the less expensive section of laptops. These seemed to have a larger range of colors, mostly darker ones with the occasional primary color like red thrown in. They were also significantly cheaper (like, by a long shot), but they did tend to be a bit thicker in width than the others. Picking one of the larger ones up (it had a 15-inch screen, which Steve thought was overcompensating a little for something which was supposed to go in your lap), he had to admit that he could sort of see what people were talking about when they preferred the lightness of the 'apple' products. Even though the weight was still minimal for him, the difference was palpable, and he wondered whether there was any real advantage in having a heavier laptop. Perhaps it would break less easily?

Setting it down again, he tried using the mouse again. It went a little smoother this time - less like he was trying to race around to find where he was going. Perhaps even like he knew what he was doing. Hoping he didn't look like an idiot who had never used technology before (which he was, but that wasn't the point), he tried to use it a little more, clicking on a few of the icons on the screen and testing out the general movement.

To his surprise, it didn't really take him that long to get the hang of.

Perhaps this would actually be a good decision after all. He could always look up the kinds of things you could do with a laptop - it sort of seemed like the possibilities were endless. Or at least, that was what he had gathered during his brief google search.

Wandering through the aisles a little more, Steve began to realize that he was getting a fuller understanding of the different kinds of laptops that there were. There were all different sizes, all different colors, some had different operating systems (he still hadn't quite mastered what that meant, but he'd gathered it had something to do with the way it looked when turned on?). It was certainly much easier to understand all this in store, instead of online.

Then Steve noticed a flashy stand, right at the front of the store. How he'd missed it before now he didn't know, but it was clearly meant to be one of the first things a customer saw when they arrived.

Walking round to the front of it, Steve nearly noped out of there immediately.

The distinctive 'Stark' logo was all over the stand and the products. It was practically saturated with them, and Steve couldn't believe his terrible luck. To have Stark shoved in his face yet again -

"They're amazing, aren't they?" The voice of the store clerk from before came from behind him.

Steve startled, turning around to look at the other man with wide eyes. "What?"

The other man chuckled. "I could see how amazed you were. they're my favorite products by far - they're just so far ahead of the other companies, you know?"

Steve stopped in his tracks. "Uh, sure," he said. He really didn't have an eye for these things yet. Sure, the display looked a lot different from the other ones here, but as far as he was concerned most of it looked futuristic and weird. Some things were touchscreen, some things had actual see-through screens. it was all the same in his eyes - all weird.

But still, the store worker seemed to appreciate his fake - enthusiasm, beginning to talk about all of the features of starktech laptops. Most of it went over his head - just like the features on the other tech had - but he caught something about larger storage space and shatterproof screens, which even he had to admit sounded decent.

Before he even knew it, he'd been convinced to buy a Starktech laptop. He didn't even know what he was going to be using it for yet, and here he was buying some high-tech thing that could probably sweep the floors and do the dishes too, from the sounds of it.

Part of him did wince at the price at the end - after all, they were at least twice the price of the apple products, and even they had seemed a little extortionate.

By the end of it, he wasn't sure whether he should thank the store worker or be annoyed at him. Sure, he now had a (supposedly) great product, but he _really_ didn't need to have bought this one.

Oh well - he'd find something to do with it, he was sure.

**

Picking up an apple, weighing it in his hand, Steve tried to decide whether he wanted this one, which was shinier, or another one he could see which was larger. These were the decisions he had to make – honestly, nowadays they were the biggest ones he had. So what if that meant that he was a little anal about the decisions? It only made sure he made the right choices.

He jumped as a voice came from behind him. “Need any help there?”

Spinning around, he breathed a sigh of relief. “Hey Leo, it’s you! You scared me there.” He chuckled, trying to make the situation lighter.

Leo smiled wanly. “Yes… were you thinking of getting some apples? They’re good today.”

Steve chuckled stiffly. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking of trying to eat a bit healthier for a while. It’s just so easy to get away with eating badly nowadays, you know?” It was all true – yet Steve had to curb himself from talking Leo’s ear off. Having someone who would actually talk to him seemed almost revolutionary nowadays really… even if the poor guy was just at work.

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Leo stood there, his customer service smile fixed on his face. It was sort of gratifying to see someone actually liking seeing him – even if Steve knew that he had to be there.

“So, uh… how’s your daughter?” Steve asked, bringing out the knowledge he had about the man from the other times they’d talked. There was always the nagging urge in his mind to try to make friends where possible, to make connections with people.

“She’s good, she’s good…” Leo looked almost surprised to have been asked at all, which was a little disheartening.

They stood there for a second – Steve began to wrack his brains for anything else he could think to ask about, to keep the ball rolling. Before he could say anything else though, the shop door opened, its bell jingling and announcing the text customer.

Steve gripped the handle of his basket a little tighter.

“Talk to you later.” Leo moved away from Steve, towards the newer person.

Well, that was a bust.

Doing his best to appear unaffected, Steve continued to shop, staring at the wares and occasionally picking them up as though he was contemplating buying them.

It was in vain though – the items in his basket no longer held any interest for him. He didn’t _need_ any of them right now, there was no pressing need to get any of them today in particular.

That was how he found himself subtly replacing the items he’d already picked out and slipping out of the store, trying to avoid anybody seeing him. Perhaps it was a little cowardly of him, but the idea of someone laughing at his attempts at friendship was just a little too much to bear.

He left the store as quietly as he could bear to – he didn’t want to make things even weirder by being caught just leaving the store when they definitely knew that he’d been here. How had this gone quite so badly?

**

Poking a doubtful hand into his laundry basket, he did his best to have a look at what he had in there. Doing his own washing wasn’t too much of a chore – it helped that he had a washing machine of his own to do it.

Pulling out some clothes, he did his best to determine which ones he could justify putting a wash on for. It was always so difficult to figure out which things could be washed together – that was certainly something he’d had to learn in washing his clothes (the incident with his pink shirts sadly sprang to mind), but he’d learned to do it nonetheless.

Picking up a few pants, he began to dig through the pockets (more money had got caught in the washer than he would have liked – enough that he made a point to make sure none of them were in there). To his surprise, some paper floated out of the pocket, dropping to the floor.

Assuming that it was just some waste paper, Steve leaned down to pick it up. To his surprise, it was the number that Nadine had given him last week. He’d totally forgotten about it (and her, to be honest) until now – he’d not seen her at all in the whole time she’d been here.

Well, maybe he hadn’t completely forgotten her. In a bout of feeling like he was invincible, Steve had chosen to eat the cookies she had given him those weeks ago, figuring if they were poisoned they probably wouldn’t have much of an effect on him. Admittedly, they had been excellent – honestly it had left Steve almost feeling like even if she was hydra it would be worth it just for that.

Coming this close to crumpling it up and forgetting about the whole thing, Steve paused. It might be helpful either way to keep the number on him… maybe he could try to interrogate her.

Or become friends with her. Whichever was relevant.

**

_… has been widely acknowledged among academic circles that the role of Captain America truly became more than its original face, Steven Rogers, when the man himself disappeared. While of course, at the time, the plane crash which ultimately led to his death was widely reported, and many neighborhoods of New York found themselves in mourning._

_Nevertheless, America found herself needing a symbol still, something to unite behind in the aftermath of the war. Even with the war won, morale was improved through the efforts of the government in finding a replacement for Steven…_

_…I have found, during my time researching this topic, that few people truly care about Steven any more. It is generally the case that the Captain America of the time, whichever incarnation this may be, tends to be the one most widely known. Indeed, some younger generations find that they have no knowledge of anyone else ever being the captain._

_Of course, this begs the question: Does it_ matter _who the man behind the mask is?_

Hubbard., The Mantle of Captain America, Orion (New York, 2005), pp. 56-57


	2. Chapter 2

Waiting outside of Fury’s office was always an infuriating ordeal. (Steve momentarily amused himself with the pun before succumbing to the boredom again.) More of the mind games Fury liked to play – keeping him in suspense, making him more and more irritated the longer he had to wait.

If he really thought that Fury had any respect for him as one of their agents, Steve was pretty sure he’d get more of Fury’s time. Yet here he was, feeling like a visitor to the place as though he didn’t come here every week. The visitor’s badge pinned to his chest flapped a little as he sighed, the slightly rattling sound of the metal clasp the only other sound in the hall. Usually there would be at least a little noise from inside the office behind him, or from someone insisting on escorting him up (they did that sometimes – part of the disadvantage of this place was the constantly rotating cast of receptionists here who each reacted differently to his visiting), but this time there was nothing.

Unless Fury was exceptionally good at playing hide and seek, he was out of his office. And they’d only been meant to meet – Steve checked his watch – twenty minutes ago.

Naturally, the moment he chose to lightly bang his head against the wall in frustration was the same moment that Fury and his entourage rounded the corner.

“I see you’ve been keeping yourself entertained in my absence,” Fury said drily as he got closer. Pulling out his key card, he unlocked his office with it and a code, and all of them gradually filtered inside. There was no explanation for his lateness – and honestly Steve hadn’t expected one. After all, he wasn’t really one of their agents, so he wasn’t privy to the details of whatever it was that had kept Fury.

Steve didn’t bother to bring it up either – he knew that it would get him nowhere (and that was from personal experience). Somehow the others that had followed them in dispersed – where to, Steve wasn’t entirely sure, but after a few minutes he and Fury were alone together.

If only the others had stayed - then perhaps he and Fury wouldn't be sat here having some sort of awkward stare-off. But then again, Steve didn't know how he felt about random other people knowing who he was. It would be impossible to discuss his 'work' without giving that tidbit away.

"How have you been this month?" Fury tilted his head, looking for all the world like he actually cared about the answer.

Steve smiled the smile he'd perfected during his uso tour. "Just fine, sir." It didn't matter if it was true or not - it wouldn't have made a difference if he'd said 'I'm doing terribly'. Fury had made it very clear that he didn't want to bother himself with Steve's wellbeing right from the start, and he wasn't about to change that now.

"Just give me one moment, please." Fury began to rummage through his desk, clearly looking for something, although Steve couldn't imagine what.

It wasn't really all that surprising when it was just some papers - although it did really look like they related to Steve in any way. Sitting there patiently, it took Steve a minute to realize that Fury had to be stalling. If the files weren’t to do with him, there was no real reason for him to be doing this now.

Still, much as Steve wanted to lean forward and figure out what was so important in this moment, he resisted. The first few times he tried to enquire about

They went through the procedure that they normally did, with Steve hoping there would be some real work for him, and Fury pretending like he was sad he had to say that there wasn't. Steve did his usual best to stay level headed and not rise to the bait that he usually thought Fury was dangling in front of him.

"Thank you," Steve replied, gritting his teeth as he did. It was such a disingenuous thing, to have to thank Fury for something which he hated.

Unwilling to wait for Fury to officially dismiss him, Steve began to stand. There didn't seem to be any reason to stay any longer - not when he was beginning to tire of the facade of his own usefulness.

"Wait," Fury interjected, holding up a hand.

Steve paused in his motions. "Yes?" He couldn't deny that he was slightly curious - Fury had never tried to prolong their meetings.

"I have a suggestion for you." If Steve hadn’t known better he might have thought that Fury almost looked embarrassed to say it.

"For - for what?" Steve asked, wondering if he was talking about doing something for Shield. That would certainly make a change for once, even if it was something small he could do -

Fury gestured at the notebook Steve hadn’t even realized was still in his hand. “Something you could add to your list of things to catch up on.”

Red crept into Steve’s face. He hadn’t realized that Fury even knew about his notebook – he’d been doing his best to find a way to catch up on 70 years of culture that he missed in the only way he could think of, yet some people still seemed to find it strange. There were so many conflicting opinions, though, that he hadn’t been able to filter out what people _actually_ liked – which had made his list rather shorter than he had hoped for.

Opening it up to where his list was, he brought out a pencil from his pocket (he had to admit, he felt rather like a student receiving instruction from a teacher, and it seemed incongruous with the setting). “Sure, what is it?”

Diligently, Steve wrote it down, even though the words together seemed to make no sense. That didn’t matter – he’d look it up and then hopefully he’d understand it.

It was at that moment, as he looked at the list as it existed, that he realized he hadn’t really made any effort to have a look at any of the other things he’d got written down there. He’d looked them up, sure, but that wasn’t the same as checking them out properly.

Looking up, Steve saw that Fury looked pretty pleased with himself – and that reminded him of just how much he disliked being here for longer than he needed to be. He’d been ready to leave like five minutes ago, after all, and this was the only thing stopping him from doing so.

Standing up again, Steve nodded at Fury. “Bye.”

Another terrible meeting over.

Thank fuck.

**

Steve picked up that little slip of paper again. It was beginning to crumple with how often he’d folded it up and put it away, unsure whether he was going to do anything with the number on it or not. He’d saved the number itself onto his phone, sure, but there was something symbolic about having the physical reminder that someone had actually expressed interest in being friends with him these days. It was usually during times that he felt particularly lonely that he felt compelled to pull it out again, still not convinced that it would be a good idea to get in an enclosed space with a stranger.

The memory of his attempts at initiating conversation with the man at the grocery store yesterday flashed through his mind – it had been so awful, to have his attempts rebuffed. All he wanted to do was to have contact with actual people, not to be relegated to just watching other people live their lives without him, yet he didn’t seem able to even manage that.

Sighing, he figured he may as well use the number. It was the best shot he had right now at making friends, even if it was possibly ill-advised.

His phone was still over in his bedroom. Even though he knew that most people nowadays were pretty much glued to the things, he just didn’t use it often enough for it to be that attached to him. Wandering through, he vaguely thought to himself that he could really do with cleaning up in here.

Digging his phone out from where it had lain under a load of sheets of paper (why they were all in the same drawer together he wasn't entirely sure, but oh well), he went to turn it on. It had amazed him ever since he got it just how quickly it sapped its own battery even after not being used for days, and so now if he wasn't using it for the most part it stayed off. There never seemed to be much point having it be on all the time if nobody was going to contact him. (That particular mindset had mostly come about after he realized that he wasn't about to get called out to an Avengers mission any time soon - he really didn't need to be on call all the time.)

Waiting for it to turn on (he knew that it always took longer if it had just spent several weeks being off) he sat down on the edge of his bed. The hard mattress barely bent under his weight - he preferred to have sleeping aids that were like the ones he was used to. He had gathered that the trend nowadays was towards having things be as soft and comfortable as possible, but the idea seemed to foreign to him that he hadn't dared try it, far too scared that if he did he'd never be able to sleep.

Finally his phone turned on, making a cheery sound as it did.

Then it prompted him to put in his passcode. He paused - did he remember it anymore? He'd been heavily encouraged to have one in the first place by Shield, since there would technically be a certain amount of data on it which probably shouldn't be able to be accessed easily, but he'd realized what a bad idea it was for him after he'd stopped using it regularly.

It took him a few tries to get right, but eventually the phone was unlocked. In a way it was sort of funny that he'd managed to forget it, since it was one of the most important numbers to him, but when there were a few it could possibly be, it left him with few other choices.

Pulling up the texting app, he was starkly reminded of how little contact he actually had with anyone. There were three message threads there, all of which had involved Shield in some form or another. It was necessary, sure, but since he knew that most texting involved talking to friends, he felt a little like he was failing at adapting to life here.

Not that he wasn't trying his best to remedy that fact.

Opening up a new message, he paused, trying to figure out what to say. If Nadine had introduced herself to everyone on this floor (which from the sounds of it she might have done) then it was possible that she might not remember him, at least not by name. Would it be prudent to remind her which apartment he was in? Or would that be too demeaning, to assume that she wouldn't remember?

Oh, there were so many things to worry about. Couldn't he just get away with writing a letter and slipping it under her door?

No, that would be weird.

He shook his head, trying to clear it of the clashing thoughts that were doing their best to destroy any confidence he might have had in this endeavor.

 _Hi Nadine_. That was a good opener, right? Proof that he remembered her name and everything. _It's Steve from next door. I was wondering if you wanted to come round to mine at some point. I want to get to know you better._

Wait, no, that sounded far too creepy. Hitting the backspace like crazy, Steve tried to figure out how to word something like that better. _Was_ there any way to talk to a virtual stranger without coming off as weird? Steve had never managed it, that was for sure.

_Do you want to meet up at some point?_

That definitely wasn't how he wanted to word it. Far too short, and casual, and -

Oh no his stupid thumb accidentally pressed send.

He stared in horror at the screen, at the message he hadn't wanted to send. What kind of terrible image of himself was he going to send, if that was how she was going to see him? What horrors would lie in wait? Would she say no just because of that? Honestly Steve wouldn't blame her.

Putting the phone down on the coffee table (frankly the only reason Steve didn't throw it was because he'd learned the hard way just how breakable these things were) he stood up, determined to forget about it.

Writing the whole thing off, sure that he was going to find that she would say no and that would be the end of that, he went into the kitchen to distract himself with food. Well, no, strictly speaking it was lunch time and it was perfectly acceptable for him to be thinking about food right now, and that was the excuse he was going to go with.

"What to have...?" He muttered to himself, allowing himself the luxury of having so many ingredients he literally didn't know what to make. It was the best kind of problem he'd faced in his whole time here, and he sort of loved it.

After making himself a sandwich (he was a simple man, even if it was more of a monster than a sandwich, with three layers making the thing like a tower of a meal) he settled in to eat it, putting some tv on in the background, as he'd learned to do in the past few weeks.

He watched it mindlessly for a while, enjoying his sandwich and enjoying the sun that was coming in at him through the windows.

It was a nice time - until his phone buzzed.

Sure that he was going to find a very polite rejection, he set the sandwich plate down and picked up the phone.

_Sure! that would be great! when do you want to meet? :)_

The smiley face was probably what caught Steve off guard the most. He knew that most people texted with them, of course, but he hadn't had the opportunity to have anyone use them with him yet. Most of the messages he received weren't exactly the type to have them in... he couldn't exactly imagine Fury being the type to end his messages with them.

Then his brain got stuck on the rest of the message. Nadine had actually said yes. She had actually agreed to meet up with him, to have a chat or whatever it was they were going to do.

The idea made him more nervous than he liked to think. Inexplicably his heart began to pick up the pace - he knew that he really did have to get this right, especially if she was looking forward to it (somehow? How had his message made her want to meet up with him? It made no sense).

He spent a few minutes trying to think whether he had anything on in the next few days. He didn’t think he did - but when he had so few things on, it was easy to forget that they were going on at all.

Deciding on the day after tomorrow so as to not seem over-eager (she might get scared off if he tried to get her to see him now, after all - they were still technically strangers) he tried to put that in a message that would seem a little less casual - he wanted to actually try to make a good impression this time.

When Nadine’s reply came in again, he was practically a nervous wreck. He'd tried to distract himself by watching a rerun of a football game that he'd found playing on some obscure channel, but even that excitement hadn't been enough to tear his mind away from the idea of intentionally interacting with another real human.

Oh good, he thought as he looked at her response. She'd agreed to go with the time he'd suggested. This was really happening. a seed of excitement began to grow inside him - perhaps this would be the beginning of him properly making a friend.

**

That same seed had already sprouted, grown, and begun to wither by the time he found himself outside of Nadine’s door two days later. He'd accidentally left it until the last minute to get ready (he didn't even know how he'd got so distracted) and now he was somehow running late to get to a place which was literally right next door to his. What a way to make an impression on a potential new friend.

Holding the tub that Nadine had given him on their first meeting, now full with his own attempts at baking (he'd thought that it would be a nice way to pay her back for giving him some in the first place), he knocked on the door.

Somehow this was one of the scariest things he'd done - and that was saying a lot.

Hoping the tub wouldn't slip from his grip with how sweaty his palms were right now, he shuffled from foot to foot, hoping that Nadine hadn't somehow forgotten about this. She hadn't seemed like the forgetful type, yet you could never really tell - some people were just incapable of keeping to plans that they'd made.

It seemed to take an age (or perhaps Steve was just very impatient right now) but eventually the door opened. "Hi there!" Nadine seemed as excited as she had been the first time Steve met her. "Come on in!"

Stepping inside (and trying not to trip up on the doorstep, which seemed to happen far too much), Steve smiled back, wondering whether he should try to match her energy. "Um - I brought you these?"

Nadine gasped (and for a second Steve wondered if it had been the wrong move). "Oh, you shouldn't have! Thank you!"

She scurried off with the box, and Steve was left there, just on the inside of the doorstep, wondering what he should do. Should he take his shoes off? He wasn't wearing a coat, but should he take his cardigan off? What was protocol in these situations?

Before he could really work himself up about it, Nadine returned, box-less, and set about leading him further into the apartment. It shouldn't have surprised Steve that it was an exact copy of his own, but somehow it did - had that detail of apartment life really escaped him?

"Thank you so much for coming round," Nadine said as she led him into the room that was his study in his own apartment, but was a cozy living room in here. "You really didn't have to, but I appreciate it so much. Can you believe that barely anyone else that I spoke to has bothered to talk to me after I went round? It's so strange." She laughed, as though it didn't actually bother her. Steve laughed too - even if yes, yes he could believe it.

Sitting down on one of the brown leather couches that were in the room, Steve tried to get comfortable.

"So, Steve," Nadine began. Steve had assumed that she was going to sit on the other couch, and had arranged himself accordingly - but no, she sat down right next to him, as though they were already close friends. "What do you think it's like living here? I haven't been able to get very much of a feel for it yet." She pouted.

Beginning to feel his gut instinct telling him that something was off, Steve coughed. Should he be completely honest? He didn’t want to make her feel like she should move, not when she'd only just come, nor did he want to drive away the only person who seemed to have wanted to be his friend in this whole century, but... he didn't want to be dishonest, either.

"Um..." he tried to search for the right words, and in the meantime Nadine seemed to shift ever closer. Trying to move away as subtly as he could, Steve tried to pretend like everything was fine. "Well, it's fine, I suppose, so long as... so long as you don't mind keeping your own company." He tried to chuckle, but he thought it came out more forced than cheery. "Most folks keep to themselves... I don't really know anyone else in the building either."

Well, even if it was slightly depressing perhaps it would make her feel a little bit better about herself, anyway. Nadine looked to be processing this for a minute or two - she kept eye contact with him, cocking her head this way and that like a dog. If he hadn't been just trying to make friends here perhaps he'd have thought it was cute, but... not right now, no.

Eventually, Nadine began to pout. "Really? If I’d known that things would be like that here, perhaps I wouldn't have chosen this place."

"Yeah, I know it -" Steve began to say, but he was cut off by Nadine changing the subject.

"So what do you do?" She didn't physically get closer again, but somehow her whole presence seemed bigger, more all-consuming, like he was getting too close to a fire.

Leaning to the side a little, Steve began to say, "Oh, I’m C-" before realizing that no, he couldn't give that answer. What to say, what to say? "I work for the government," he settled on. It was... technically true, without letting anything out that he shouldn’t.

Internally, he began to wonder how that hadn't been something that Shield gave him an answer on. They'd spent so much time setting this life up for Steve, getting him an apartment, getting him (at least partially) set up with everything he'd need in this new world - and yet a plausible backstory seemed to be something that they missed. Unless he'd forgotten about it? No, he couldn't have done, his memory was too good for that these days.

"-eve? Steve?" With a start, Steve realized that Nadine was calling his voice. He must have gotten too lost in his thoughts, too worried about what to say.

"Sorry," he began to say, "I was just..." Then he realized that Nadine already had her phone out, fake nails tapping on the screen.

Patiently, he waited for her to finish up whatever she was doing. He knew enough about the culture nowadays that he knew not to look at what other people were doing on their phones - yet she was close enough to him (by her own choice) that he could at least see that she was on her messaging app. Well, hopefully she wasn’t talking about him. That would just make tings weird.

Eventually, she looked up. "Sorry about that," she said, not looking sorry at all. "My friend texted me something that her boyfriend did, and I just had to respond." Right. Was that normal? Steve couldn't tell.

"So what were you saying?" Nadine put a hand on his bicep. This was definitely taking a turn for the weird.

"Uh -" Steve's mind shorted out for a second, his entire thought process stalled at the realization that all of this was taking a turn for the flirty.

When Nadine didn't seem to notice that he'd blanked out for a second, he shook himself slightly and coughed. "Oh, right, I was saying that I - I work for the government." The lie slipped out easier this time, almost like he meant it.

On some level it must have worked - because Nadine’s immediate reaction of eyes widening and her grip on his arm tightening showed that she probably believed it. "Really? What sort of stuff do you do?"

She looked up with earnest eyes, and Steve felt bad that he had to simply reply, "oh you know... just boring stuff... filing paper, that sort of thing."

He thought he'd gotten away with it too - only then Nadine asked, "yeah, but like, what do you _do_?"

Was there any really plausible addition he could add to the lie? He already didn't know what he was talking about - he didn't know what an office worker might get up to nowadays. Everything was digital, he didn't know if there even was any paper left in offices any more.

He shrugged. "Really, it's just... stuff." Shit, that was the worst way he could possibly have worded that.

Nadine’s hand dropped from his arm. "Oh." She seemed disappointed - but then she spoke again. "So, where did you grow up?"

Now that was a question he could answer with no hesitation. "In Brooklyn!" He realized after the fact that perhaps his answer had been a little too patriotic, but it was something he'd never been able to help.

“Oh, that’s cool. What’s it like there?” Nadine smiled up at him, and Steve – well, Steve had frozen again.

“It’s – um –“ he managed to stammer out, entirely unable to find words that would make sense. He’d visited Brooklyn a few times since he’d been here – but it was just too different now, with too much of what he remembered gone for him to truly call it home any more.

What could he say about it that would still be relevant? Most things he remembered were gone by now, all the details of his childhood would now be obsolete in more ways than one.

“It’s nice,” he said lamely. It was a cop-out, and he knew it.

Nadine seemed to know it too. She laughed, sounding as though she was trying to go for the whole ‘airy, happy girlfriend’ thing, and stood up, moving to the other couch. A symbolic move.

Not that he wanted to have her be interested in him (ever since he’d got to this century he had found a distinct lack of his own interest in women – whether that was due to losing Peggy or something else, he didn’t know) but that didn’t mean that he wanted his newest potential friend to abandon him completely.

It didn’t take long for nadine’s questions to dry up. Once she realized that he wasn’t about to give any significant information, anything that revealed any details about himself, she seemed to give up on asking anything more.

Even after that, he put up a token effort of asking her about herself, but this only seemed to have the effect of making her shut down even more than him. Eventually they ended up sitting in silence.

After a minute of thumb twiddling and pretending like this wasn’t really awkward, Nadine stood up. “I suppose you’d better be going then.”

Steve couldn’t deny that he felt relieved as he stood up too. “Yes, I have – things to do,” he said. Why couldn’t he have come up with a ‘thing’ that he needed to do? Damnit.

The walk through the apartment was close to excruciating.

“Well it was nice talking to you,” Nadine said, holding onto the door as though she was eager to close it on him.

Steve gave her a tight smile. “You too.”

Well, that hadn’t gone the way he’d wanted, he thought as he walked along to his own home. How had he missed Nadine being desperate to flirt with him the first time they met? Had she not been doing it then, or had he just not noticed it?

Perhaps he wouldn’t know.

He would be very surprised if Nadine wanted to meet up with him again after this.

**

Having his laptop out, as well as his notebook, made Steve sort of feel like he was being productive finally. If he was doing important stuff to do with catching up with society, that could only be a good thing, right? (He ignored the fact that it had been a year already since he came back and he hadn’t put much effort into doing any of this yet. That wasn’t the point.)

He’d had a week to try to get used to this machine, he thought that he’d done a pretty good job of it – at least, as much as he could without having to google things that were clearly obvious to anyone from this time

So, by now, he felt pretty confident in his ability to find tv shows and movies on Netflix (that had probably been the best discovery he’d had this whole century – having that many things at your fingertips? And you get to choose exactly which one you wanted to watch right at the time you wanted? _And_ you got to watch as many as you wanted, all for the same price? Absolutely insane!), and since he’d mostly stuck to trying to get hold of a few things that he remembered from before, he felt like it was about time to start catching up on everything he ‘needed’ to watch from the time he’d missed.

The top two things on the list, the things that he’d seen the most people claiming to be cultural icons that everybody needed to have watched, were Star Wars and Lord of the Rings. He had to say, the idea of watching Lord of the Rings appealed to him the most. He’d known of The Hobbit’s existence before he ‘died’, of course, and to find out that an extensive set of sequels had been written while he was gone had intrigued him greatly. He hadn’t had the time or energy to sit down and read that much though – and even though there was a lot of movie to watch, he was pretty sure they would take less time to watch than to read. Star Wars didn’t exactly sound bad by comparison, but…

Was watching a ton of movies in one go his best bet at living his best life here? He didn’t know, but he sure was about to find out.

Two hours later, he realized that he hadn’t moved a muscle in the entire time he’d been watching this movie. Straightening out legs that had stiffened up, he stretched a little – only enough to feel like he was comfortable again, mind you. There was no way he could stop without knowing what happened next – even if he was hungry and it was dark outside.

Perhaps this was the sort of thing they talked about when they said that Netflix binging was a common thing nowadays – it was just so easy to keep watching, to click ‘next’ and keep going without realizing it.

Was this the millennial experience? (It was another of the terms that he heard bandied around a lot, but most of the time he steered clear of them, never sure if he was using them right.)

Either way, he was absolutely loving it. How had he ever managed to survive without being able to watch a series of movies all in a row at his leisure?

**

It was really beginning to get to him, that everything he’d had set up for him was ultimately controlled by Shield. He was incredibly aware of the fact that they probably had all of his passwords something which he had come to realize was an incredibly important thing to _not_ share with anyone else, even a government agency. At the time it hadn’t seemed like a big deal, but now…. Well, he didn’t like the idea of Shield reading every message he received on there. Admittedly, most of them were just spam from his Shield-maintained social media sites, but that didn’t make it any better really. It only served as a reminder that they had decided to make everything for him, and then almost forget the whole reason he was affiliated with them in the first place.

It was sort of daunting, to even pose the idea to himself of going rogue, and setting things up that only he could access. It was tempting though.

The email he'd had before had been an @shield address, which seemed fine before, but now he could see how perhaps it wasn't the best idea to have that be his only email address. It probably wouldn't be the best idea to be blasting to the world just who he (technically) worked for.

It was a hard decision to choose what other email provider to choose - why did there have to be so many? This was like choosing a laptop all over again - but eventually he picked Gmail, figuring that if it was affiliated with the biggest company in the world, it had to be good, right? That was how that worked. Totally.

Slightly surprised that somehow 'Steverogers@gmail.com' hadn't been taken already, Steve gladly took it, making sure to choose a new and completely different password this time. It was a hard thing to do, to try to come up with a new password that Shield probably wouldn't be able to guess, but he thought he had it.

Of course, he was more than aware that Shield had plenty of people more tech-savvy than him who could probably find a way to hack into the account, but if they did that at least he'd know about it - and it would definitely be grounds for him to complain about it. It would be totally different than Shield occasionally just looking at his emails for seemingly no reason, which he knew that they did, on occasion.

Looking at the empty inbox, he felt a mixture of pride and also loneliness. Sure, he'd accomplished this all by himself, but what was he actually going to do with it? He couldn't transfer his existing social media to it, because legally he didn't have the rights to do that.

Well, maybe he could figure that out later. Right now it mostly just mattered that he had the thing set up - he could always use it if he needed to.

Satisfied, he turned off the laptop. He didn't like to spend too much time on it each day - he'd read that it wasn't good to spend too much time on devices like that, something to do with it ruining your eyes? Steve didn't quite understand the science behind it, but it must be true if so many people believed it.

So, naturally, he chose to turn the tv on next. In his defense, it was getting dark out and he didn't see the point in trying to get anything done outside today. It seemed like it would be mostly pointless, to be honest.

At least, he figured, if he was going to watch tv he may as well make it worthwhile. Turning on the news, he settled in to try to understand what was going on in the world.

To be fair, by this point he was pretty sure that he had a fairly solid grip on how things were working in the political landscape nowadays. It had taken a while in the beginning (things had been very different, and it had taken some time before it was even a concern of his compared to everything else he had to do) but by now he understood most of what happened.

Some things were the same - there was always a war going on, the senate could never decide on anything, and generally the world was going to shit - but there were numerous improvements too.

It stung a little when the next item on the news’ list was an enthusiastic report on an Avengers promotion event. Steve could only conclude that this was the event he’d heard Fury talking about before – it wasn’t even anything serious, it was just them talking and promoting themselves, effectively. It reminded him a lot of the uso tours – like the Avengers were dancing monkeys, instead of heroes.

There wasn’t any sound from the actual event – at least, other than fanatic screaming from the crowds in front of them. The camera wasn’t at a great angle – it was right from the back of the crowd, the Avengers little blobs of color in the background.

It was amazing, the amount of love that people really had for these people. It was sickening – since Steve saw more about them doing press events, and being seen doing promotional actions, than he saw coverage of them actually saving anyone. Logically he knew it must happen, but he couldn’t remember when the last time he heard anything about their work in being heroes.

Or maybe it was just the way that the public at large seemed to care less about that facet of the avengers, and so the news focused on it less.

Whichever it might be, Steve wasn’t a fan.

He couldn’t take it any more – he couldn’t watch them pander to the audience any longer. He had to turn it over.

**

It had felt strange, the first time he stepped foot into a modern gym. There had been a certain amount of realization of how much of an outsider he was – how much he really didn’t’ know. He hadn’t thought to look up the machinery there would be there beforehand, the first time – and that had proved his downfall.

Was it possible that anybody managed to operate these things without reading an instruction manual beforehand? He hadn’t been convinced then, and frankly he still wasn’t now. It had only been though extreme acting skills and quickly looking things up on his phone that he’d been able to avoid extreme embarrassment.

Sure, he’d known that he could have asked for help. There was a help desk for that reason, but… judging from the look of the other people in the gym, they’d probably assumed that he was a frequent visitor to a gym – that that was how he’d come by his own bulk.

That had been enough to almost make him turn around right there. It wasn’t like he needed to do exercise to keep up his musculature, but it was a good idea to stay limber, no matter what the serum could do for him.

From that moment he’d found himself wanting to go to the gym more and more often – even though he didn’t need to. No, rather than being a boost for his body, it was more like a boost for his ego. Maybe it was a little sad that that was the place he chose to get his ego boosts from, but it honestly was a good way to do it.

Even as he lifted the weights, he had to try to pretend like he was putting in more effort than he was. It wasn’t the hardest thing to do, but it was easy to forget that he needed to pretend like he couldn’t easily lift double of what he had on the bar right now.

As with every time he visited the gym, he could feel the eyes of his peers on him. It always brought a mixture of pride, and straight up shyness out of him. On the one hand, it was nice to be appreciated instead of ridiculed – but then, a lifetime of being ridiculed for his body’s poor physical condition had conditioned him into automatically reacting negatively to any scrutiny of that type. It was a real catch-22.

It was all he could do, every time, to just try to ignore it all.

Well, he tried, he really did, but the plethora of mirror which surrounded the room like a cocoon of ego made it difficult to ignore everyone else – when they were all staring, it only made him want to stare back. (Sometimes he did, and immediately regretted it when the testosterone-filled bags of meat took it as a challenge. There had been one time – well, perhaps it was best to not dwell on it.)

Trying to not let memories of workouts past invade his memories too much (to lose concentration when holding weights like this was never a good idea) Steve did his best to bring himself back to the present. It was difficult, when it was so easy that he found his mind wandering in an attempt to keep himself entertained at all.

To be fair, today’s crowd weren’t too bad. It was easy when he knew a few of them. In a way, he’d developed a rapport with some of them – insofar as he would sometimes exchange what he dubbed ‘bro nods’ with them. They were regular enough customers that they recognized one another, and to pretend otherwise would be strange, but there also seemed to be no desire among any of them to strike up any kind of conversation.

It was something that Steve often contemplated while here – whether he thought it would be worth trying to make friends with any of them. Judging by the chatter he did hear among them, usually while in the showers, the answer for the most part was a resounding no.

And so that was how he found himself here, coming here again and again, even with no promise of friendship to draw him here.

It was a lonely thing – even as he watched a newcomer wander in, looking as though this might be their first time here. Steve watched, the cogs in his head beginning to turn, as the newcomer took in his physique, eyes widening.

Well, that made him feel bad if nothing else did.

Setting his weights back down, Steve sat up, momentarily taking a second to stretch his shoulders a little. He didn’t want to make it look like he was singling this guy out or anything, but it was a little difficult to do when he was being very obvious in looking around the place like he’d never seen one before.

“Hi there,” he called out, standing up and taking a few steps towards the other.

The man whirled around to face him, surprise written all over his face. “Uh – hi?” He said. Steve didn’t miss the way that his eyes seemed to be drawn to his chest – the perils of wearing a shirt that was too tight (he hadn’t been able to find anything else this morning that was gym-appropriate).

Still, he did his best to not draw attention to that fact. “Do you need any help?”

The other man seemed to drain of tension at this question, his shoulders dropping from where they’d been held. “yeah, please,” he said, coming closer. “I wanted to get healthier, but… I just don’t know what I’m doing here, I guess.”

Steve’s first instinct was to laugh – he knew that feeling so well. But he refrained, knowing that it would be bad to make the man think that he was laughing at him, not with him.

“I can show you, if you like? Do you know what you’d like to work on first?”

The conversation that followed was mostly stuff that Steve knew about, thankfully. It was gratifying to realize that he did in fact know a decent amount about this place by now – at least, he had an understanding of the machine names and how they should be used, and that was all he needed really.

It didn’t hurt that for once he was able to have a decent conversation with someone who wasn’t about to try to flirt with him after.

It was as he realized that he’d been here for a good four hours now that he figured he should probably leave soon. Yeah, he liked being here, but not quite that much. It may be a good idea to go shower and get going – otherwise his whole day would be given over to this.

******

Standing in line at the cafe he liked to go to, Steve wondered whether he should get a large drink, or a medium. Perhaps it wasn't the biggest of choices he'd had to face in the past year, but it was still an important one right now. If he went with a large one, he'd probably stay in and get a snack to go with it (it was early, and he was hungry) but if he went with a medium he would probably take it out and go for a walk.

What to do, what to do....

He was practically stroking his chin in thought, he realized, and he quickly dropped his hand from his face.

Looking around the place, it didn't take long to see that there were a plethora of seats available. It wouldn't be difficult, then, to simply stay in and watch the morning rush. (It was always interesting to watch the rushes go by - when there were people from all walks of life Steve liked to amuse himself by imagining their reason for needing a coffee fix in the morning.)

The girl in front of him ordered something which sounded very complicated - there were at least 20 words in there, and he commended the barista for being capable of knowing what she was even asking for, never mind remembering it all.

Still, it would probably be delicious, judging by the amount of syrup there probably was in it.

It was almost embarrassing for Steve to step up when it was his turn and order his boring coffee. Not that he would ever find anyone bothered by his choice in coffee, it just seemed like a rather odd juxtaposition of extremes. On a whim he ordered the medium - while he did love to sit and watch, it just seemed like too nice a day to not do something more with it than sit inside. If he wanted to do that, he could have stayed at home.

Once he'd paid, he went to wait at the side of the counter for his drink. The girl from in front of him was there too, on her phone - and so he chose to do the same, thinking that since the place was beginning to get busy, it might take a few minutes for his order to be ready.

He'd downloaded an app called 'candy crush' for moments just like these - he'd heard that it was good for wasting time, and he hadn't been disappointed by it. Truly, if he wanted to do nothing for half an hour, it was an excellent way to go, simply firing up the level he'd been trying before and going for it. In a way he found that it tested the strategic part of his mind, the little part of him that had been unlocked once he joined the army that loved to plan and strategize. While the game was a little more wont to do its own thing than axis had been, it was still surprisingly satisfying to beat a level, as though it had a real world meaning.

"Steve?"

He jumped, startled out of the concentration he'd had for his game.

Sheepishly putting his phone away, and trying to look like he hadn't just been actually surprised, he took the drink being offered to him. He took a quick sip to check that it was what he'd asked for (aah, so good) and headed past the line of people waiting and out the door.

The busy streets were a little less appealing to him when he had a hot cup in his hands (just because a burn would heal quickly didn't mean he had to be happy about getting one in the first place) and he began to walk, dodging people as he did.

He wasn't really headed for anywhere in particular - he rarely was, when he had nowhere to be. Still, he knew how out of place that could look for all the people who _did_ have somewhere to be and would curse at you for daring to be in their way.

Slipping out of the way of one particularly distracted businesswoman whose hands were full of a briefcase and a newspaper, with her phone pressed between her shoulder and ear to prop it up, Steve found himself going down a street he didn't think he had before - one which was perhaps a little quieter.

Enjoying the chance to slow down a little, to not have to worry about the possibility of having his drink spilled down his front, he took a few sips of coffee. The warm drink went well with the warm weather, the heat blending together to just be cozy.

There were smaller shops here than there were in some of the busier areas of the city, and Steve like that. sure, it could be interesting to go to the big malls and observe the kinds of shops there were now (okay, he'd gone to one once and it had been too much for him - too much choice, too many people, and a general feeling that time wasn't passing all combining to make him leave as soon as possible), but there was something familiar about the smaller shops, the ones that were family owned or only open on certain days at certain times.

It made him feel more like he fitted in, when he got to see those ones. More like he hadn't become a stranger in his own city.

Taking his time, and looking properly in all the shops, Steve was slightly surprised to see an antiques shop. It was dark, even from just looking in the window from the outside, and seemed to be crowded with furniture. Some of the styles he recognized, and some he didn't - and yet it all looked old.

Intrigued, he finished up his drink (it didn't take long, he must have been thirstier than he thought), put the paper cup in a nearby trashcan, and made his way inside.

Wow - his first thought was that it was even darker inside than it had looked. His eyes took a moment to adjust, and even then it was difficult to make out what things were without being right up close to them.

There didn't seem to be anybody around - not entirely unusual for this kind of shop, and not entirely unwelcome either. The quiet of the place, and the cover of darkness always seemed to make these places feel timeless, no matter whether Steve wanted it to or not.

The smell of old wood filled his nose, thick and rich. It was one he knew well - he and his mother hadn't exactly been able to afford new furniture - and yet associating that smell with the familiar styles of chair and table that he knew from his childhood just seemed wrong.

He ran a hand along the leg of a chair, up at chest height by virtue of being perched on top of a scuffed table, weighed down with various other items - including, but not limited to, three chairs, an old guitar, and three tubs of _something_ , contents unknown.

He was careful to steer clear of knocking into any of the piles of furniture as he rounded the corner into a more distant aisle - the things were piled up so haphazardly that he didn’t think it would take much to knock them over. While he could probably afford to pay if he broke something, it wasn't on his list of plans to have to cart broken furniture back to his place today.

How did this place even have any light coming into it? The furniture was piled up so high that it stopped any kind of real lighting from getting through - and there was no artificial light to be seen.

Still, he did his best to have a look at what was on offer. He had no idea whether he was going to buy anything - but he had to admit, the idea of owning something solid, something that wasn't flat-packed, was tantalizing. Would it make his apartment feel more like his home? He thought it was likely.

Then something caught his eye - a familiar pattern of wooden lattice making up a chair back. He had to look at it more closely - when that pattern was seared so strongly into his mind as his ma's favorite chair, the one he'd never been allowed to play on.

Out of instinct, his hand went to where there had been a sizable dent in it (one which he'd made as a child, and his ma had never let him forget about) - and was disappointed when there was none there. Even in the low light, he could see that the pattern of scratches and bumps it had acquired over its lifetime had clearly been different to the one he knew.

Still...

He had to have it.

But how to find the desk to pay? That was going to be the biggest problem here.

Leaving the chair where it was, he wandered further into the shop. It was just as cramped and twisted as it was everywhere else, and he hoped that he was going to be able to keep track of where his chair was within the shop.

The desk was tucked away in a corner of the shop, dark and blending in with the color of everything around it. There was nobody in sight = that was worrying, was this shop definitely even open? That would explain a lot if it wasn’t.

There was a small bell perched on top of the desk. It was a dull brass color, and looked like it was about as old as Steve. Frankly he wasn’t sure it was even going to make a sound if it tried it – but he tapped it anyway, the familiar action reminding him of all the times he’d done the same before. The sound that came out of it was dull, muted, but definitely recognizable, and hopefully loud enough to get the attention of the shop owner.

He leaned against the desk, prepared to wait. For a few seconds there was no sign of anyone taking notice of him – but then a rustling came from behind a door behind the desk, and a little after that the door opened.

An old man stepped out, brushing crumbs off his shirt. “Sorry about that, you wouldn’t believe how long it takes me to get all my papers together in the afternoon.” He looked up at Steve, who gave him an awkward smile. “Can I help you?”

Steve coughed. “Uh – yes, I was wondering if I could buy one of your chairs?”

The man seemed surprised by this – he stumbled slightly, before rushing around the desk. “Oh – well, shall we go and get it?”

For a second Steve couldn’t remember where the chair was, or how to get to it. The idea of retracing his steps seemed far too intimidating, far too difficult.

It took all of his skill from the field to get back to that chair. All of the aisles looked the same – messy. It was almost impossible to tell whether he was accurately retracing his steps or not – until they finally came to the chair.

“Here it is,” Steve said, patting it a little. “This one.”

He was complimented on his choice of furniture – but then it took around an hour for them to get it out of the shop. (How it had ever got into the shop in the first place Steve wasn’t sure, but he was impressed that they were able to get it out without causing too much damage.)

This thing had better be the best thing he’d ever bought.

**

Steve wandered into the bookstore. The familiar musty smell of books hit him immediately – it was one of the things that had stayed consistent in the time he’d been asleep. It wasn’t that busy, honestly – Steve didn’t know whether that made him feel better or worse about it. Sure, it meant that he had the place to himself, pretty much, but to know that so many people weren’t reading books? As someone who would have loved to have the resources to read more when he was younger, it sort of disgusted him.

Regardless, he was still intrigued by the wealth of knowledge that was about to be at his fingertips. Even just standing in the presence of so many books was exciting – it was a good kind of thrumming that brought his body to life in a way it often wasn’t nowadays.

The further he walked into the bookstore, the quieter it got. It was a good kind of silence, the comfortable kind – his favorite.

There were so many titles, so many genres… No, he couldn’t afford to get distracted. He had a purpose here, he was meant to be looking out specific books.

He’d realized the other day, during his perusal of the internet, that there was no reason for him to keep being ignorant over the history that he’d missed. It hadn’t been a massive deal at first, but the longer he was here (and the more that he realized that this was in fact permanent) the more he realized that there were things he was missing out on by not knowing things.

Sure, he could have learned this stuff from the internet, but… it seemed like the kind of thing that he should learn from a book, by people who actually knew what they were talking about.

The shelves all had little genre titles at the top of them, which Steve thought was very handy. He had expected to walk into it with no idea of where the books he was looking for might be lurking, and honestly that was so much better.

There were a few other genres which he thought looked interesting - books with shiny, colorful covers, and bold print exclaiming their titles to him. It was temping, to be honest, and it was only his practice of sheer determination that allowed him to stay on track.

Still, he enjoyed himself as he wandered through the shelves. It was like having your own little corner of the world, stuck between two high bookshelves with nobody but you and the books... like there was nothing else in that moment that mattered.

(Sometimes his fingers twitched as he saw a book with a particularly compelling title, but he stayed strong.)

It was when he reached the history section that he finally felt satisfied. he rounded the corner to that genre, having spotted it as he was walking between 'young adult' and the 'puzzles' sections. It was right at the back of the store, which frankly Steve thought was rather an insult to their importance. Why should romance be any more important than the truth of history? Yet that was almost every book that had been at the front of the store.

There was another man there.

Steve nearly tripped himself up as he came to a halt, unsure if it would be invasive for him to simply come up beside this man or not. It was a good thing he had quick reflexes, otherwise that might have been embarrassing.

Eyeing up the man, who was facing away from him and perusing the books, Steve figured it couldn't be that weird, so long as they didn't make conversation. There was nothing good that could come from any conversation about the past - he had gathered that from his conversations with others. His hair was medium length, long enough to brush his shoulders. He was only a little shorter than Steve, and was significantly less built. He was dressed casually, in a hoodie and jeans.

Trying not to look like he was sidling up to the man, Steve walked deeper into the aisle and started properly looking at the books. Yes, this was what he'd been looking for, this was...

Historical fiction.

Well, that wasn't quite what he had in mind.

_Rose Shatternaught has been a handmaid in the service of Lord Downey for the past three years..._

"You don't strike me as the type to be looking for historical romance."

Steve flinched, and span around.

The voice had sounded amused, but not judgmental - and naturally, it was the guy he'd seen here before, looking at him with a bemused smile from across the aisle.

Steve stared down at the book he'd picked up. Yeah, the cover of a scantily clad woman in a vaguely-renaissance dress and a shirtless man should probably have given it away, to be fair.

"Uuh... I was just looking," Steve said, hurriedly shoving the book back on the shelf. "I just..."

The other man laughed. "It's alright, I’m just messing with you."

Feeling a little foolish, Steve nodded, trying to keep his cool. "Yeah, I was just trying to.... brush up on my history." No need to mention the ginormity of the brush he would need to use.

At this, the other man's face lit up. "Oh, really? Do you know what period you're wanting to look at? Because there's some books I could recommend, if you wanted? Like -" He turned away, scanning the shelves quickly, presumably for a specific book.

Steve watched on, bemused.

It was only a few seconds later that the man turned back around, his hands falling from where they'd been up, running along the books. "Oh, you probably want to discover your own stuff, right? I forget sometimes that not everybody..." He trailed off, some of the excitement gone from his demeanor.

Steve cleared his throat. "No, no, it's fine," he said, trying to reassure the man as best he could. "I’d be happy if you could help me. I was mostly looking for stuff from the last century or so?" Having some form of help with this could only be a good thing. It was possible that he might have underestimated the sheer volume of books he would have to hunt through to begin with - anything to narrow that down would be welcomed.

Some of that joy came back into the man's face. "Sweet! Okay, well this is the section that mostly deals with all that," he said, motioning Steve over to where he had been stood originally. "There's a bunch of different topics that they talk about, but I think if you're looking for a good overview this one would be good-" he shoved a thick paperback book into Steve's hands "- but if you're looking for the early 20th century this is what you'd be looking for-" another book delivery "-and then for things that are a bit later, this one's good - not completely, but they do an alright job of it, even if I don't completely agree with them."

Holding his three books and trying not to feel too overwhelmed, Steve looked down at them. That was a lot of reading right there - it would take him a few weeks at least to get through all that.

"Oh - I didn't even tell you my name, did I? It's Bucky." Steve looked up to see the man holding a hand out for Steve to shake.

Maneuvering the books onto one forearm, Steve happily shook his hand. "I'm Steve," he replied. The handshake was firm, firmer than Steve might have expected - although he'd noticed that every since he got big, other men tended to feel like they had to squeeze extra hard in handshakes with him, like they were trying to compensate for his size or something. This didn't feel like that though - it seemed less like competition, and more like Bucky was excited at the prospect of history.

Steve took a step closer to the bookshelves, walking along them a little to see if there was anything else that looked interesting. "So if you're that into history, what do you -"

There were books with his face on.

Entire train of thought derailed, Steve stood there, dumbfounded. They had written books about him. _Lots of them_.

They all had names like 'Captain America: The truth' and 'Steven Rogers: The Kid From Brooklyn'. How had anyone found enough information on him to write entire books?

There were books around them too with the faces of other men which also carried the name of Captain America on them. None of the faces were familiar - and that didn't sit well with Steve, feeling like this was something he should have known better.

His free hand reached out to trail over the spine of one of them. His pre-serum face stared dolefully out at him, the picture grainy and faded, in poor quality. He remembered having it taken - it was the one he'd used for his attempts at joining the military, the one which didn't highlight how large his head had looked compared to the rest of his body. It had been a favorite of his - at least, until it was obsolete.

He knew it barely looked like him any more - and yet some part of him still thought of himself as that skinny, asthmatic kid.

Stepping back slightly, he realized that the books that weren't about him greatly outnumbered the ones that were. There were whole shelves dedicated to the others, leaving his sandwiched in between like they were an afterthought.

"They were cool guys, huh?" Bucky's voice at his shoulder made him jump. The man was stood next to him, looking almost fondly at the books. "I love the idea of Captain America, you know? It's such a great symbol."

Steve gulped. "Right, yeah."

It occurred to him that with his own younger face right there, that Bucky might put two and two together. It wouldn't be the first time he'd actually been recognized - it was just really rare. Like, to the extent that it had only happened a handful of times.

Bucky picked up a book with a cover that was the American flag with a man stood in a heroic pose superimposed on top of it. Steve didn't recognize him - but the fact that he was wearing a version of the Captain America suit with bell-bottoms suggested that he might have been Cap at one point or another.

"This one is one of my favorites," Bucky said, putting it on Steve's pile. "Both the book and Eric,” he added.

Well, that wasn't weird at all. Steve looked down at the man's face, and tried to imagine whether he had lived up to his standards. It was hard to tell.

"I - I’ll check it out," Steve choked out. He had no idea if he would or not - there was a reason why he'd never gone out of his way to look up anything about the current captain. It would just be far too painful.

Bucky laughed, light and airy. "What kind of education did you get that didn't involve having a whole unit dedicated to the Captains?" He asked, jokingly punching Steve's shoulder.

he tried to chuckle. "I guess my school must have missed that one," he said stiffly.

Bucky shrugged, beginning to look bashful. "I'd be more than happy to teach you more about them sometime," he said, a slight blush pinking his cheeks.

Steve blinked. "Yeah, okay."

Wait, why had he agreed to that? He hadn't meant to learn anything about the other Captains, and here he was agreeing to let some stranger tell him more about them?

But when Bucky lit up at this, Steve couldn't deny that it sort of made him feel good about the whole thing.

"Great! I have to go soon," Bucky said, digging his phone out of his jeans pocket, "but I’ll give you my number and we can meet up sometime? Go get coffee or something?"

Steve nodded, pulling out his own phone. "What’s your number?"

Bucky read it out to him, and Steve put it into his own phone. He was sort of glad that Bucky didn't insist on putting it in himself - even with Nadine’s number in there now, he still had barely any contacts in there, and it still looked bare.

Hefting his pile of books, Steve tried to get his bearings. He’d come here with the general intentions of finding information on the time he’d missed, and he was leaving here with books he hadn’t intended to buy and a potential new friend. This definitely wasn’t how he’d imagined this going.

“Bye!” Bucky called over his shoulder. He was holding one book himself – Steve hadn’t even gotten around to asking what he’d been looking for himself. He’d have to ask next time they met.

That fact sent small thrills through him. Something about this felt different to when he’d met Nadine or the guy from the gym. There was another quality about it – something in him that unrepentantly wanted to spend more time with Bucky. It was a strange feeling, but no less welcome.

Walking to the desk to buy his books in a dream-like state, Steve wondered whether he was doing the right thing in learning more about the other caps. Surely it would only make the jealously he felt already worse? It hadn’t even been his intention – he’d only wanted to learn about the things he was genuinely missing out on. He got the feeling that Bucky was the outlier here, that most people weren’t quite so fanatical about the Captains America.

Perhaps it would be worth it if he thought that they had done a good job though.

He’d have to read on and find out.


	3. Chapter 2.5 - Interlude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly the fake book names were so fun to write for this chapter

“Ronnie Acton was born in Washington DC in 1920, the son of a mechanic. His father was wounded in the great war, and so Ronnie became very familiar at a young age with caring for others, as he continued to do in later life…”  
Duryard, F. E., _The Man Who Took on the Biggest Role_ , (1981), p2

“Upon the death of the former Captain America, there was a period during which it was uncertain whether the role would continue at all, whether it was even _necessary_ to have one at all. But, at public demand, there was a need for Captain America to keep up being a role model, and to keep morale up as the country lurched into a post-war state.”  
Striker, T., _Shields and Subservience_ , (1987), p6

“It was considered debatable whether it would be possible to replace the one that had gone before, but it was quickly clear that having someone authoritative-looking dressing in the right costume and being able to say the same words as Rogers had – because it is important to remember that Rogers did not write his own speeches, instead having them prepared for him by officials who knew much more about the war than he did (GBU 938.2).”  
Duryard, F. E., _The Man Who Took on the Biggest Role_ , (1981), p20

“Acton particularly thrived in a way that Rogers had not; in being able to be a relatable figure for those who had made it back from the war. Instead of simply needing someone to encourage them to fight, these men wanted to see a man who had been through the same things that that had, had seen the same horrors as them, and had been forced to follow uncomfortable orders at the pain of dying either way. Rogers had been excellent at providing a good reason for the men to fight, to be a role model for fighting in the war. But now it was Acton’s turn to shine – make the men believe that the war they had fought hadn’t been in vain, and that their feelings on returning were valid. Within government-allowed doses, of course..”  
Duryard, F. E., _The Man Who Took on the Biggest Role_ , (1981), p99

“Acton was a beacon of hope for many, for many years. In the years following the war, he was made the mascot of many organisations, both in the sense of being a figurehead, but he was also involved personally in talking to veterans. It is now unclear, with the release of papers relating to his use and employment, how much of this was Acton’s own idea and how much was the government pushing him to take part in whatever they deemed necessary, as there is much evidence that he perhaps was not as willing to take part in these as was previously thought. “Oh, sure, there were times when I didn’t want to sell whatever they were selling. But I had to do it – I was Captain America, it was the right thing to do at the time.” (Moll, 1991)

This is further refuted by the simple fact that as more wars came on the horizon, his use changed. Suddenly instead of validating the feelings of those who had fought already, he was a figure like Rogers had been, in convincing troops to go to Vietnam, or to fight the communists – whatever the convenient scapegoat for America’s grievances was that time, it was certain that Acton would be the one on the posters…”  
Williams, K., _The Rise and Fall: Captain America Edition_ , (2009), p86

“What Acton is remembered for, in modern times, was how much he tried to rally against the government’s use of him as a puppet. While at the beginnings of the war he appears bright and eager in his films, those heavily inspired by the documentaries made around the use of Steve Rogers and his howling commandos in the war, it is clear that by the end of this it is a very different story. Not only were the general public becoming more and more used to the ways in which the government tried to get them to fight, but Acton himself seems less willing to participate. Instead of the films having a tone which reflects the propaganda of the American military, suddenly these are pieces to camera, shot directly with Acton reading off a script about how America needed to fight. Hunter has argued that these show his sincerity, that it was meant to be a move just like he had made at the start of his career, that it was intended to make the American man relate to him in a way which would allow him to go fight. Others, like Gaveson, have more rightly argued that Acton looks visibly tired in these, like he is not only physically exhausted, but that he is tired of playing the part which he had not really signed up to play in the first place…”  
Striker, T., _Shields and Subservience_ , (1987), p107

“It was unclear what was going to happen to Acton when it became clear that he was ageing too much to allow him to continue playing this part. There was no reason why he couldn’t keep being a spokesperson, of course, but his ability to keep up the ‘young soldier, man of the people, a typical example of what the American military needs’ persona was waning. Despite his popularity, it became increasingly clear that he just wasn’t able to do everything that the government needed him to. Of course, this was nothing like the previous time a captain had been replaced – without Acton’s death, there was no way that it could be easy for him to simply retire.

So, the solution that was devised was that a replacement would be chosen, in secret. It is unclear how much of this Acton was actually aware of, but it is likely that he had some inkling that this was at least coming for him…”  
Baker, Y., _How to Resurrect an Idol_ , (2001), 53

“Acton stopped officially being Captain America in 1979. It was announced to the public no less than a week before, meaning that the public outcry about a decision they had no hand in making was excessive. With so many growing up with Acton as a stable figure to guide them into the military, and as a role model in general, the amount of people who wished for him to stay was large. Even after his stepping down, he remained popular with the older crowd, remaining one of their most influential figures to date…”  
Striker, T., _Shields and Subservience_ , (1987), p129

“Ronnie Acton died at the age of 72. Official records show that he died of a heart attack while in his bed. It is widely rumoured that there was more to it than this, however, and conspiracy theories abound constantly, especially with the addition of the internet into the mix. None of these have been confirmed, however, and this book will not comment on their validity.”  
Williams, K., _The Rise and Fall: Captain America Edition_ , (2009), p86


	4. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay this chapter begins the part of the fic that if i had the time i would totally go back and rewrite completely, but here you go anyway i guess

Steve took a deep breath. There was no real reason for him to be nervous – but he couldn’t help it either way, no matter how he tried.

The previous few times he’d tried to make friends with someone flashed through his mind. None of them had gone particularly well, none of them leading to any solid friendship.

Strangely though, despite how he hadn’t cared too much about the failings of his previous friendships, Steve found that he was worried more intensely about this meeting. If he fucked this one up….

Well, that wouldn’t bear thinking about. This time, he wanted things to go well. He wanted to impress Bucky – and he wasn’t even entirely sure why.

He walked into the café, 99% sure that this was where Bucky had asked to meet him – he’d checked the message about ten times just this morning – but there was still a part of him that was convinced that he must have gotten it wrong, that he was going to accidentally stand him up.

His worries were short lived – one of the first thing he saw was the back of Bucky’s head. The man was sat on the other side of the café – which was surprisingly large, given how small it had seemed from the outside.

Unsure whether he needed to order anything for himself, Steve walked further into the shop, bypassing the counter and making a beeline for Bucky’s table. As he got closer, he could see that Bucky’s nose was buried in a book – this made some sort of sense in Steve’s head, since they’d met in a bookstore.

“Hey there,” he called out once he was close enough to talk without it being weird.

Steve watched in amusement as Bucky’s shoulders shook as he jumped – he’d clearly been much quieter than intended.

Bucky span around. It was almost amusing to watch his expression change from mildly startled to relieved. “Hey, Steve!” he said, moving to stand up and greet him.

Slightly surprised, Steve let Bucky give him a quick hug – a little more intimate than he had expected from anyone from this century, but he wasn’t complaining either. (He knew he was touch-starved most of the time, but what was he going to do about it? He exactly couldn’t go about giving out free hugs.)

“How have you been?” Bucky asked. Before Steve could reply, he said, “oh – I’m sorry for not ordering you anything, but I wasn’t sure what you would want, so I thought I should wait ‘til you got here. And then I sort of got distracted by my book.” He laughed, and - Steve’s brain whited out a little, since all he could think was that he wanted to hear that laugh again.

Shaking himself a little – what a weird thought to have, right? – he nodded. “Yeah, that’s fine. I’ll go up and get something – don’t get too distracted while I’m gone!”

He left before anything else weird could happen.

Ordering didn’t take as long as he thought it might do – the line that had been there when he walked in had decreased significantly in the time he was talking to Bucky, and before he knew it he was at the front of the queue. Unlike other times, where he’d been unrepentant in his choosing to get a ‘boring’ drink, he ended up overthinking it a little. This time he was around someone who was going to ask what he’d gotten, was going to wonder if there was some kind of correlation between coffee choice and personality. Steve didn’t really believe that there was, but the saying ‘black like my soul’ existed for a reason.

It didn’t take him long to succumb to the cravings though. He just loved it too much to bother with any of the fancy syrups that he knew were a possibility nowadays. They just seemed too sweet – perhaps his upbringing with almost no sugar at all had some effect on that outlook.

As he waited for the coffee to be made, he found himself getting antsy. It was rare for that to happen – he’d gotten used to living life slowly – but he wanted to get back to Bucky, back to their table so they could talk. It was an unusual feeling – but one which made him happy nonetheless. It felt good to have friends that he was excited about seeing again.

“Hey Steve,” Bucky said, as Steve approached the table with his drink. This time he was turned around, clearly expecting Steve to be coming to the table.

The fact that his friend looked just as excited to see him made Steve’s stomach do something funny inside him.

Telling himself that it was just the smell of his coffee making him hungry, Steve smiled back. “Hey there,” he replied, taking the seat opposite Bucky.

Moving some of his things (which included: his wallet, another book, two coffee cups, and one compass) Bucky blushed a little. “Sorry for taking up so much space,” he said, “I just ended up having so much stuff with me, and it just ends up piling up onto here.”

Steve chucked. “It’s okay.”

They sat in silence for a second or two. Steve took a sip of his coffee. To his surprise, the silence didn’t feel awkward, or suffocating. It felt nice – like they were two friends, comfortable with each other and happy to be in one another’s presence.

“So, how has your week been?”

Steve nodded. “It’s been good,” he said, and took another sip of coffee. “I didn’t do much, really… just went to the gym a few times.” He had to make it sound like he actually had stuff going on in his life. Like, he _had_ to, there was that funny feeling in his gut again that made sure he didn’t admit anything that would make him sound bad.

Bucky raised his eyebrows, looking like he was doing his best to hide a smile. “Really?” He asked. “I would never have guessed that you go to the gym.” His pointed glance at Steve’s arms hit his point home well.

Slightly self-conscious, Steve folded his arms, trying to draw attention away from his size. It always made him feel unnerved when people did that – when he hadn’t really ‘worked’ for it, it didn’t feel like he should be congratulated on it. “Yes, well….”

Bucky didn’t seem to be too bothered by the fact that Steve didn’t want to talk about the gym. He seemed to be relaxed, much more so than Steve was – and Steve had to say, it looked good on him. He was sat back in his chair, an easy grin on his face… the way Steve wished he could be right now.

“Oh, no need to be humble,” Bucky said, laughing. “You clearly put in a ton of effort for it. Be proud!” His words were genuine, and flattering. Had Steve actually worked for his size, he might have not felt bad about them.

In an attempt to change the topic, Steve gestured to the book that was still on the table between them. “Oh, isn’t this one of the books you recommended?” He squinted at the cover, from what he could see past the cups on the table. The embellishment of the American flag was there, at least, and that sort of gave it away.

Bucky’s face lit up. “It is,” he said. “I sort of can’t believe you recognise this, I wasn’t really expecting you to buy those books the other day. Did you like it?” The question was asked in all seriousness, and Steve had to sit and think about his answer.

It wasn’t that he hadn’t enjoyed it, so much as he’d thought that everything in it felt wrong. Sure, he didn’t really know the time period it had been talking about very well, but the way that the author talked about the guy made it seem like he was a paragon of all virtue. Nobody was that perfect; Steve knew that well. It sort of made him suspicious – but he hadn’t been able to tell whether his suspicion was justified or if it was his jealousy clouding his judgement.

“I – I did,” he said slowly. It wasn’t a lie – it had been interesting to find out things about the guy, just not interesting enough that he could have chosen to do it if Bucky hadn’t suggested he do it.

“What did you like the most?” Bucky sat forward, resting his chin on his palms, like he was eager to know what Steve had thought.

( _Cute._ The thought slipped though without Steve really thinking about it. He chose to ignore it for now.)

Mentally rifling through the knowledge he’d gleaned from it, he tried to come up with something that wouldn’t sound like a vaguely worded insult. “I – I liked the description of how he got chosen,” he said finally. “I mean, they really decided to pick names out a hat? Not exactly the kind of decision making they’d –“ _they’d have done in my day_ , he nearly said, “-decision making that’d get them a good cap.” He hoped Bucky wouldn’t notice him stumbling over his words there.

Bucky nodded enthusiastically. “Right, that’s one of my favourites too!” He said. “I couldn’t believe it when I first read about it either, but they actually filmed some of the process. There’s a few rare tapes of it still about on the internet – I usually like to start teaching about him by showing my students the videos and just letting them realise it for themselves. It’s pretty fun.” He giggled.

To be fair, Steve could imagine that it was a pretty fun sight – Bucky had a very good point there. “were – were the other caps chosen like that?” He asked. The question slipped out before he could realise that this might lead to Bucky talking about him, and then he’d recognise him and it would all go to shit –

“I’m not entirely sure,” Bucky said, frowning. “I don’t remember off the top of my head. I think the current cap was chosen a bit more rigorously – there were rumours going around a few years ago that people were able to apply for it, like, submit an application or something, but I’m not sure I believe that. They definitely got a bit stricter this time around.”

The idea of submitting yourself didn’t seem so ridiculous when you compared it to how Steve got chosen, though. Steve was kind of glad that Bucky didn’t bring up that particular link – he thought that he would probably have gotten a bit suspicious if he’d started going all out defending himself.

Steve began to fiddle with a stray napkin that was sat on the table. “Yeah, I guess it’s good that they took it a bit more seriously.” It came out a little bitterly. To be fair the idea of them letting chance decide who would take his place was a little insulting – although he hadn’t been lying when he’d said that it had been a part of the book that he’d enjoyed. It had been ridiculous to read about, even if in hindsight it seemed like a terrible idea.

Bucky shrugged. “I guess by that point they didn’t care as much about it all? The author talks about it a bit more later on in the book – they really had stopped caring so much about it because there wasn’t as much to do, but there’s definitely been a bit of a renaissance with superheroes lately. You know, with them being necessary again and all. I suppose it made more sense to pick someone who would be good at fighting this time around.”

Well. That certainly explained a lot. How had Steve missed that point in all his searching for knowledge about this century?

Actually, it was probably as a result of his general reluctance to look at anything related to the other caps. It had turned out to be his downfall after all.

“Yes… I suppose they are needing more heroes these days. I’ve noticed that people have really started to latch onto the Avengers, huh.” Steve wasn’t sure that he kept his bitterness out of his words.

Bucky shrugged. “My interest had always lain more with Captain America. The others are alright, I suppose, but they just aren’t as interesting to me.”

Steve hummed. That was pleasant to hear. “Yeah, me neither.” He said, trying to not seem too fervent about it.

Bucky grinned. “Right? Captain America doesn’t need any other fancy gadgets or powers to make him special.”

_What?_

Steve froze. “…Right,” he said, trying to keep his voice level. “Right, yes, the later captains don’t have any powers.”

Why would they? He’d forgotten that had been something talked about in the books – none of the others had had the serum. It had made sense – the serum hadn’t been replicable, so it wouldn’t be possible to give it to the others.

“Exactly – they’re strong, and plucky, and they don’t need any help to fight evil.” Bucky leaned forward, his eyes glimmering with passion about the subject. “Don’t you think that makes them so much better than the others? They never needed anything extra to make them fight.”

Steve shuffled his feet. “Well, yes, but… I suppose I like the idea of having something extra about you that helps you to fight. After all, if there was nothing special about heroes, everyone would be one.”

Bucky considered that for a moment, his head cocking to the side. “Yes, I suppose that’s true. But that’s less special overall, I think.”

“I suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree.” This seemed to amuse Bucky, and he spluttered into his drink.

“So, uh… what got you so interested in these guys to begin with?” Steve asked. The idea was just so alien to him – that some people did actually like those posers, and didn’t think they’d totally stolen Steve’s job… Well, maybe it was just him that cared about that part.

Bucky took on a thoughtful expression. “I’m not sure if I could pinpoint one specific thing,” he said. “It sort of started when I was in high school – we’d done small amounts of work on the Captain Americas in elementary school, but nothing big until then. I knew who they were in theory, but… as soon as we started to learn more about them, about the stuff they did for our country…. Well, I just couldn’t help but be intrigued.” He shrugged.

Steve cocked his head. “Okay, yeah, but like… you clearly love them more than most people. Why is that?”

That made Bucky smile. “Well when you teach a module to college kids, you sort of can’t help but love them.”

Steve blinked, surprised. “You _teach_ about them?”

“Yeah.” Bucky looked sheepish, and Steve felt bad – he hadn’t meant to make it sound like there was something wrong with Bucky for liking the fake Captain America. (He couldn’t exactly change the fact that these kids had been raised to like them.)

“I know I don’t look old enough for it, but I was just able to fast-track my time in college,” Bucky said, looking down at his current cup of coffee.

Wait – that hadn’t been where Steve thought this was going at all. “No, no, that’s not what I meant,” Steve tried to backtrack, to clarify himself. “I just meant – that’s really impressive, you know? You must know so much about them? I didn’t know…?”

Bucky looked back up. He looked relieved – and Steve didn’t quite know what to make of that.

“You really think so?” Bucky flushed slightly.

Was he… was he getting flustered? Steve couldn’t tell, but it sort of seemed that way. That he seemed to be looking for Steve’s approval in some way, or something similar… it was an odd feeling.

“Yeah, I do.” It felt good to compliment him, but Steve had to admit that he wasn’t lying either. The idea of anyone being smart enough to teach was pretty damn cool, as far as he was concerned.

They talk a little about that some more. It was very clear that Bucky was passionate about what he did, and that was always nice to see.

But the fact that he had managed so far without needing to once answer a question about what he did for a living sort of threw him a little. After they’d talked at length about Bucky’s job he’d been sure that he would need to reciprocate – but his other interests sufficed to talk about for now. He made sure to emphasise them – or, maybe it was just that he was eager to talk to Bucky about his own life. Perhaps that was more telling than he wanted it to be.

Unfortunately, at some point Bucky seemed to realise the same thing. “Oh god, I’ve been talking this entire time, haven’t I?” He ran a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“My… my, um, ex-girlfriend was a big fan of speaking your mind,” Steve said. “Really, don’t worry, I’m used to other people being taking charge. I don’t mind.”

Bucky’s blush remained. “Really? Are you sure? Because you just don’t seem…. The type, I guess.”

Steve shrugged. The memories of Peggy didn’t bother him all that much nowadays, and it didn’t hurt to think of her as he spoke to Bucky. “I’ve always admired people who know what they want and how to get it,” he simply said.

Bucky took a sip of his drink. “So, you’ve… had a lot of girlfriends?”

Steve stopped short. That was a weird question to ask, right?

“I – no, not really,” Steve said slowly. “I wasn’t – I wasn’t exactly popular with the ladies when I was younger.”

Bucky’s expression turned to shock. “Really? I find that very difficult to believe,” he laughed.

Blushing, Steve nodded. “Yeah, I wasn’t always this big.”

Bucky still didn’t look entirely convinced. “Seriously? Then how did things change.”

Steve wondered how he could explain this without giving away too much. “Um… well, I was very unwell as a child, and I guess I just never had a chance to grow very much. And then I… had some experimental medical procedures, and it cured me, and I was able to grow some more.” He didn’t mention that it had happened well after normal people had their growth spurts.

Bucky didn’t seem to know what to say. Steve had sort of expected that – even his doctors had found it difficult to talk about all of his ailments. Taking pity on Bucky, he decided to change the topic.

“So what about you?” Steve asked, redirecting the original question at Bucky. Presumably it was going to be much easier for Bucky to answer it than it was for him. (It would also do to stop any further questioning on Steve’s medical history, because he could hardly answer ‘magic’ to any of the questions.)

Bucky tilted his head to the side. “Uh… well, no. obviously.”

Steve did his best to not show that he had no idea what Bucky was talking about. Why was it obvious that he wouldn’t have had girlfriends? He was a smart, good looking man, surely it would be easy for him to find girlfriends?

Bucky seemed to have picked up on Steve’s initial confusion, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. Seeming vaguely amused, he said, “you know, because I’m gay?”

Steve was fortunate that he had the ability to keep a straight face. It wasn’t like he’d never known any queer people in his life (no matter what some people seemed to assume about the time in which he grew up), but to have Bucky announce it so loudly in a public place, like it wasn’t strange? That was something he was unused to. “Right, right,” Steve said, nodding like he didn’t find it unusual at all.

Bucky didn’t seem to know what to make of that. Frankly, neither did Steve – clearly there had been something he missed in all his searching about modern life.

Silence fell over the table.

Steve coughed. He had to change the subject before things got weird – he didn’t want Bucky to think that he had a problem with it, but neither did he think this was a time to play innocent. “So, what hobbies do you have?”

Fortunately, this seemed to work.

Bucky perked right up, sitting up straighter, and looking more engaged. “Well, I sometimes like to go war re-enacting. It’s not my favourite era, but I do love history in general.”

Re-enacting? As a full on hobby? That seemed a strange thing to do. His reaction was entirely knee-jerk. “You what now?”

“You mean you’ve never heard of civil war re-enacting?” Bucky sounded entirely shocked, which sounded about right for someone who spent most of their life thinking about history.

Steve shook his head. “Nope.” He still wasn’t entirely convinced that it was a real thing.

Bucky still didn’t seem entirely convinced by Steve’s claim, but he happily gave Steve a description anyway. “Oh… well basically you dress up like you’re from the time, and you act out what happened in the battles. It’s really fun!” He sounded a little like he was trying too hard to get Steve to believe him, just a little too over the top in his enthusiasm.

“Oh…” The idea of doing a battle when you didn’t _have_ to didn’t quite sit right with Steve. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but there seemed something a bit obnoxious about it, like they thought they could step into the shoes of the men who had done real battle and have the kinds of experiences that they had.

Plus – for him, the idea of stepping out into battle for fun might be difficult, when he was too used to doing it for real.

Bucky nodded, not seeming bothered by Steve’s lacklustre reaction (potentially from having had that reaction too often). “Yeah – I mean, I prefer re-enacting more modern scenes, but the group I’m with just prefers the older stuff, you know?”

The way Bucky talked made it sound like it was so effortless to understand, such a simple concept that anyone could get it. And that energy was contagious – it made Steve want to believe him, to know exactly what he was talking about. “That sounds pretty cool,” he said, caught up in Bucky’s clear passion for this hobby. And it sort of did – he just didn’t know whether he wanted to be invited or not.

“I’m sure you could come along at some point if you wanted!” And there was the invitation he’d sort of been dreading. Bucky sounded like he genuinely wanted Steve to come, as well, which only made him more conflicted about it.

Looking at Bucky’s open, eager face, Steve found that his ability to resist that kind of thing was very much lower than he had realised. He nodded slowly. “Sure, that sounds… fun.”

Somehow, Bucky managed to become even happier at Steve’s answer. “Cool! I can’t wait!”

With anyone else, Steve might have been sceptical about that kind of sentiment. It always seemed to be used by those that didn’t mean it – and yet Bucky _did_ seem to be genuine, and it made Steve feel happier to know that Bucky really liked the idea of spending more time with him already.

_Pting_

It took Steve a second to realise that it was a notification sound, one that wasn’t his own.

Bucky also didn’t seem to twig to it either, and Steve thought that perhaps it was someone else’s entirely – and then Bucky jumped into action, trying to get at it from where it sat on the table between a coffee cup and a plate. “Sorry, sorry,” he said, seeming embarrassed by it.

Steve shrugged. “It’s okay, don’t worry about it,” he replied. He could wait while Bucky dealt with whatever it was.

At the very least, it seemed like whatever it was, it was interesting. As Bucky typed, he smiled. 

Steve couldn’t resist his curiosity about it. “What’s up?”

Bucky seemed to finish typing, and looked up. “Oh, just an email from one of my students asking about one of their assignments.” He shook his head, seeming bemused. “She always asks for extra credit even when she doesn’t need it, in every single class I’ve had her in. Sometimes I love the enthusiasm, but it can get a little overwhelming.” He laughed.

Steve cocked his head to the side. “Well isn’t it good that your students are eager to do more work?” He asked, trying to find the silver lining in the situation. He wasn’t exactly an expert on college, and he didn’t know what would be considered normal for a student to do outside of class.

Bucky seemed to consider this for a moment. “Well, yes, but not when I can barely get a moment to myself in my office. It doesn’t matter whether it’s office hours or not, I get loads of them coming to talk to me.” He almost seemed frustrated by this, despite the fact that Steve still sort of thought that it seemed like a good thing.

There also seemed, in Steve’s mind, to be another reason for his students to come to his office so often. The guy was very good looking – he could only imagine that his students wanted to come to see him for that reason. But why was that even the first thought that he had about the man? He shouldn’t have been thinking that sort of thing. That was weird, right? He coughed, mostly to bring himself back to the present and back to normal. “That’s… that’s such a shame.”

Bucky chuckled. “I know right? It’s like, let me grade your paper before you come ask me about it.”

Steve couldn’t help but laugh too.

Then another thought occurred to him. “I wish I could have been that good of a student when I was younger.” It was more like ‘I wish I’d had the energy to focus on my lessons back then’, but it was still true.

Bucky nodded. “Honestly me too.” He shook his head again. “Even I wasn’t quite that good, and I skipped like three grades.” He said it nonchalantly, as though there was nothing strange or impressive in that fact. Even Steve knew that that was a sign of being very smart.

Of course, there was also the fact that Steve had left school much earlier than kids did these days did for the purposes of working. He’d not been as successful at it as he and his mom had hoped, but it had been something he still had to try doing. That was a similar thing, right? “I probably skipped the equivalent amount of three grades by spending time in the hospital,” he said instead. It wasn’t even an exaggeration on his part. Even before he’d had to leave entirely, there had been a ton he missed out on, which probably didn’t help with the whole ‘not knowing what’s going on’ thing.

Bucky’s eyes widened, and he leaned forward. “Wait, really? I know you said you were sick as a kid, but I didn’t think you mean that sick.”

Steve laughed humourlessly. “Yeah, unfortunately.”

“How much illness can one boy fit into his body?”

It was such an unexpected way of wording it that Steve couldn’t help but burst out into laughter. “A lot, is the answer.”

Despite the fact that he had been joking (although it was also true), Bucky seemed to take it very seriously. “Really?”

It was at this point that Steve realises that some of them were probably called something different back then, so he couldn’t use medical terms. “Yeah, there was stuff wrong with my heart, my lungs, my legs… pretty much everything that could have gone wrong did.”

“That’s… that’s so awful,” Bucky said, putting one hand over Steve’s. It overly intimate – but strangely, Steve found that he didn’t mind.

He was about to say something else – he didn’t know what, but something reassuring – when Bucky checked his watch.

“Oh shoot, I should get going!” Bucky exclaimed after checking his watch. “I have stuff I should have marked for tomorrow and I’m still down a few.” He began to pack the books and other belongings back into his bag.

“Right, you should probably do that,” Steve said, nodding.

Bucky seemed too busy to distract with anything else for a few moments. Steve didn’t even realise just how much stuff Bucky had with him at the time until suddenly it was all inside Bucky’s bag instead of being on the table.

When he was done, Bucky spoke again. “right…” he hefted his bag up onto his lap properly. “I’m really glad we did this.” He sounded almost shy.

Steve smiled at him, hoping that it wasn’t him that was making Bucky feel shy. “Me too, it was good.” He left out the fact that this was the first decent conversation he’d had with anyone in quite a while – he figured it might be something that actually would make Bucky run from him.

“We should do this again sometime. I’ll text you?” Bucky stood up, shyness fading to be replaced by simultaneous determination and harriedness,

Steve nodded quickly. “Yeah, absolutely.” He didn’t want to sound too eager – but at the same time he really did want to make it clear how much he’d enjoyed this experience.

“Bye!” Giving him a small wave, Bucky left the shop. Steve waved back slightly too late for Bucky to see it.

He sat there for longer, finishing off his drink. With Bucky no longer with him, Steve knew that he would look a little stranger in the shop by himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to care about that. In a way he was still reeling from the high of having a good, sociable time with Bucky, and he wanted to revel in that feeling for a bit longer. He’d forgotten just how good it was – having Nadine talking to him about her own life hadn’t been quite the same thing.

Strangely, though, the fact that Bucky had talked about himself and his passions hadn’t quite felt like the same thing. It hadn’t felt like he was being self-centred – it had just felt like he was excited about what he did, which could only ever be a good thing.

Part of him felt bad that he had allowed Bucky to talk for hours about Captain America while saying very little about himself, about his own history.

But when this was the first person that he had really felt like he connected with? There just hadn’t been a good opportunity to potentially ruin that friendship.

And besides, he had been too glad at the fact that he was finally getting to have a conversation with someone who wasn’t going to judge him on his life choices. It was always nice to not have to worry about that, like he always did while talking to Fury.

Eventually he figured he had to leave. Drink finished, and thinking done with, there was no more reason for him to stay here any longer. The place was beginning to fill up as people got off work, and Steve was well aware that he was taking up space in the tabled area.

Even as he stood up to leave, he was surprised that there was no lessening in the good feeling he had from being with Bucky.

And, hopefully it would be a feeling he wouldn’t have to lose.

**

Bucky  
look at these!  
[1 attachment]

Steve opened the attachment to find a picture of some flowers. They were bright red, and sitting in a hanging basket outside a storefront. He could only conclude that they were just some flowers that Bucky had seen outside somewhere… and somehow they had made him think of Steve.

_Adorable._

Where had that thought come from?

Steve shook his head. these thoughts were becoming weird – they were just friends.

But that wasn’t the only time that Bucky messaged him out of the blue about something random that he’d seen. Cute puppies and good food seemed to be the main targets – and Steve could appreciate both of those (frankly he didn’t get to see enough of them).

The idea that someone was seeing things and thinking that he would appreciate them was entirely novel – even the friends he’d had in school had never thought to tell him about things they’d seen in that way – and it only added to the brewing affection he had for Bucky.

It was what made Steve want to set up another time to meet with him.

(He refused to call it a date. It couldn’t be a date.)

**

Steve nodded to himself. The chair sitting in his apartment looked out of place next to his modern furniture – and yet it was the thing in the whole place which looked right in his eyes.

Its dark wood shone – the dint of his work polishing it, in an attempt to make it shine a bit. Sure, the scrapes marring its finish spoiled the look somewhat, but he had found that he liked that it _looked_ old. It didn’t need to look new – Steve thought that if it did, he would feel like it was false.

Overall, he was pleased with the effect. It made him suddenly feel more at home – and that was saying a lot, given that this had been his home for a year.

Reaching for the laptop which was sat on the coffee table (Steve had found himself using it more than he had thought that he would, and so kept it on hand most of the time when he was at home) he began to research having more period furniture in his home.

So what if he had been advised at first to just buy cheap furniture? Just because it would do for others didn’t mean that it worked for him. Even having one old chair made him feel so much better.

**

During their next meeting, Steve was early.

Purposefully early, he should say. He had assumed that Bucky would be there early too, and so had thought to match that – but when he sat there until five, ten, fifteen minutes after the time they had arranged to meet, he knew there was something going on.

He had all the time in the world – it didn’t matter him when Bucky arrived, so long as he did.

And then it got more and more late, and Steve began to wonder whether Bucky was going to turn up at all, and –

Bucky practically slammed into the chair opposite Steve, breathing heavily. Steve jerked up from where he’d been looking at his phone, surprised at the ferocity of Bucky’s sitting down.

“Hey there,” Bucky panted out. “I’m so sorry that I’m late; I got caught up in a staff meeting that I wasn’t expecting to have, and then _it_ ran over, and then the subway went haywire somehow and I couldn’t get on a single train, so I had to go to a different stop…” He rested his head on the table.

Steve tentatively put a hand on top of one of Bucky’s. “It’s fine,” he said, trying to pat the hand in a comforting way.

Whether it was or not was unclear – but either way Bucky looked up at him, and said, “thank you.” He blew out a huge breath. “I was sort of worried you’d get mad at me for not telling you ahead of time that I was going to be late, but by the time I realised that I was going to be, I would have just made myself more late by taking the time to stop and message you.”

Steve shrugged. “Don’t worry about it.” Sure, he had been worried a bit before, when he hadn’t known what had happened to Bucky, but now that he knew that there was nothing big going on? It was totally fine.

“Do you want me to go get you a drink?” The fact that Bucky was still breathing hard made Steve wonder whether he was alright – and he just had to offer to make him feel better.

Bucky looked up at him gratefully. “Yes please, if that’s alright.”

“Of course it is!”

Steve practically jumped to go get Bucky the drink that he asked him for. It was an obvious thing to him that he should go get something to help out – and even the queue that had formed was worth waiting in.

He was glad that it didn’t take him too long to do it. Or perhaps he was just so excited to be seeing Bucky again that he didn’t notice the time passing.

On returning to their table, Steve wasn’t at all surprised to see that it had been taken over by many of Bucky’s belongings, just like it had done the last time they did this. It seemed to be some sort of skill that Bucky had.

Somehow, conversation flowed just as quickly as it had the first time that they met up. Steve didn’t know why this surprised him so much – it wasn’t like Bucky had ever shown any inclination to treating him like he didn’t want to be friends with him.

And yet, they talked so much – about Bucky’s life, his research, about how much his roommate irritated him sometimes. (Steve couldn’t even imagine living with someone else again after so long, and he told Bucky as much.)

This time he even talked more about himself – but still keeping it vague, enough to keep it plausibly recent without lying. He couldn’t tell Bucky that his mom had died of TB – but he could tell him that she died after being unwell for a long time.

When Steve checked the time, he was shocked to see that it had been several houts since they sat down. “Is it that time already?” He asked, surprising even himself. That was strange – it felt like barely any time had passed.

**

It didn’t take long for Steve to become accustomed to Bucky’s presence in his life. Despite having used his phone little beforehand, it became a habit of his to check his phone when he woke – Bucky would usually text him some grievance about the mornings (it hadn’t taken long for Steve to realise that his friend was _not_ a morning person, something which he enjoyed teasing him mercilessly about).

Sometimes he wondered at the fact that it had only been three weeks since the time they first bumped into each other at the bookstore. He had never had a friendship develop so quickly. If Steve hadn’t known better, he might have thought it was too good to be true.

Bucky always seemed to want to meet up with him as often as possible – and Steve would be lying if he were to say that he didn’t appreciate that very much. Even if he didn’t always have the ability to meet up when Bucky suggested (there were times where he had been in the gym and hadn’t seen the messages until several hours after).

Steve was almost surprised at how well they got on. With how terribly his previous attempts at forming close friendships with people had gone in the past, he really wouldn’t have expected any of it.

Seriously, their conversations were life changing. So good for bonding them together. They really agreed on all the important things.

This extra thing seemed to have become a ‘thing’ between the two of them – and Bucky had begun bringing gifts in the form of food to their meetings. Steve had almost begun to expect it – except not really, because he knew that Bucky wasn’t obliged to give him anything.

That didn’t mean that he didn’t enjoy it every time though. “Hey, I brought these,” Bucky said, placing a tub on the table between them.

There were a lot of things already on the table, including food that Steve had already bought. Quickly, he went to move them out of the way to make room for this extra box.

As Steve got a better look at it, it really did seem that there was something good in there. “Ooh, what’s in there?”

Bucky grinned. “Well I can see you already brought something, but I stress baked a cake last night and I thought you’d want one.”

He opened the box, tilting it so that Steve could see the slices of cake inside. It was covered in frosting, and Steve wanted to eat it. “It looks really good.” He practically had to hold back from licking his lips. “But what do you mean by stress baking?”

Bucky suddenly looked embarrassed. “Oh… well some of my students had a test the other day, and I had to grade them, and it was so stressful that I thought I’d go do some baking to distract myself from it.”

Steve nodded in understanding. It didn’t sound like something that would be fun to do, and would need distracting from. “Ah, that sounds like a sensible idea. So does it calm you down or something?”

“Oh, no, you misunderstand – it’s not that I bake because I’m stressed, it’s because the baking makes me more stressed, so the marking doesn’t seem quite so bad by comparison.” Bucky looked at him earnestly.

Steve swallowed his laughter. “That… I mean, I guess that makes sense,” he choked out, trying to keep as serious as Bucky had seemed. If this was something that Bucky took seriously, then he should try not to make fun -

When Bucky giggled, Steve knew that all was fine. “Don’t worry, I know it really doesn’t make any sense,” he snorted out. Steve laughed, and Bucky continued, “but somehow it does work, so I keep doing it.”

Steve was slightly taken aback at the idea of Bucky doing anything stressfully, to be honest. Most of the time he seemed to on top of things, like he knew exactly what needed to be done, and would get it done on time.

Or maybe this had just been his technique all along.

Picking up the box again, Bucky began to carefully pull the slice of cake out. “You should try it,” he said, “I don’t think it’s my best work, but it should be good anyway.”

Steve handed him one of the plates that had been on the table before, and when it was full of cake, took it back. Picking up a fork, he ate some of the cake. It was sweet, and moist, and as far as Steve was concerned was excellent. “It’s good!”

“You really think so?”

Steve nodded, mouth full of cake.

A love of food was another reason for their constantly meeting up at restaurants and cafes. It was something that Steve had noticed, but there was no reason to read anything more into it. For sure, the two of them were just enjoying food together.

**

In his head, the more time they spent together, the more that Steve caught himself referring to their meetings as dates. At first he didn’t think too much of it – or he didn’t allow himself to think much of it – but as he realised more and more that he really did care for Bucky a lot… Well, he realised that there might be a little more to it than that.

He just couldn’t help it though.

No matter how he thought of it, there seemed to be this connection, this instant spark between him that wouldn’t stop no matter how he tried. He couldn’t get Bucky out of his head – he would come home from their ‘dates’ thinking about whatever interesting facts Bucky had told him this time, and that would last for a good few hours.

(There had been one particularly memorable night when he’d come home and been unable to stop grinning because Bucky had touched his hand and called him handsome. There had been other context, a reason for Bucky to be doing that, but still. It was such a nice feeling that he couldn’t help it.)

They were getting close. It was unavoidable.

He loved it.

**

_Sitting on the edge of the bed, Steve tried to be patient as another doctor held a stethoscope to his chest. It was cold, and he watched his pec flinch away from it. He hadn’t intended to do that – but it certainly gave him a little thing to chuckle at, among his boredom._

_It wasn’t surprising to him when they deemed him perfectly fit and healthy – the serum had somehow protected him all these years, the ice working with it to preserve the way he’d been all those years ago. There had been no doubt in his mind that he was going to come out of this deemed fully fit to get back to work._

_“So how are things?” Steve asked amiably. He knew what the verdict would be, but there was no harm in asking._

_The doctor turned to take her stethoscope off. “Well you appear to be in perfect health, Mr Rogers.” She sat down at her computer (what a machine! Steve still hadn’t quite figured out how the devil they worked, but they amazed him nonetheless) and pulled up the email programme, and began to type away. “I’m just writing everything down to email to Director Fury,” she explained when she caught him staring._

_The fact that his results were getting emailed to the head of the whole organisation caught Steve a little off guard. Part of him never expected to be this big of a deal – it was strange that they were treating him like he was so important._

_It did tell him that they were going to put him back in the field though. That was the only logical conclusion that he could come to – it was the only reason he could see for his fitness mattering to these people. If he was fit enough, they could use him… and Steve had made his peace with that. Just because he didn’t particularly want to be a fighter again didn’t mean that he had any real choice in the matter any more._

_He waited with his head bowed until the doctor stood up again. He could have watched what she had written – his eyesight was good enough to read it from over here – but he sort of didn’t want to know what she’d said, didn’t want to see confirmation of what he already knew._

_“Come with me, Captain.”_ Captain _. Could she have made it any clearer?_

_Still, he followed her out into the hall, the medical feel of the building familiar._

_They didn’t walk for long – just to an innocuous room at the end of the corridor, one which from the outside Steve would have just assumed was another of the examination rooms from the outside._

_Once the doctor opened the door, though… well, this was something more official for Director Fury to use. There were several plush couches in there, and when Steve was led to sit down on one he had to admit to himself that he wasn’t entirely sure what was going on here._

_Director Fury was sat on the couch opposite him, giving Steve nowhere else to look. Meeting Fury’s gaze was somehow more difficult, though – despite having one eye, Steve suspected that the man saw more than everyone else in the room put together._

_“Captain Rogers.” Fury stuck his hand out for a handshake._

_Steve was quick to reciprocate – he’d only met Fury a few times since waking up, but he already had a great deal of respect for the man. “Director.”_

_“So,” Fury said, sitting back into the couch. “I hear you’re declared fir for business.”_

_Steve gulped. “Yes, sir.” Fury stayed silent, merely staring at him, and so he kept talking. “I’m prepared, sir. I could –“_

_“No.”_

_“I – what?” Steve blinked, confused. “I thought you wanted me to…?”_

_Fury began to shake his head, and Steve felt even more lost than he already was. His face began to take on an apologetic expression – and this was the turning point, the moment at which Steve realised there was some vital piece of information here was missing here._

_“Captain Rogers,” Fury said, picking up a couple of pictures which had lain on the coffee table between them, unnoticed by him until this moment, “as I’m sure you have already realised, during the time you were… gone, the world moved on by a great deal. Some of the evidence of this you will have already seen, but… Well, perhaps it would be better for you to see for yourself.”_

_He passed Steve the photos._

_Steve’s hand trembled as he took them._

_A sea of red, white and blue. That was the first impression he got – incomprehensible to begin with. But, as he scanned the top one, it came into focus – a man stood in Steve’s costume, posing for the camera. The photo quality was poor, the kind he was most familiar with, but it was unrecognisably ‘Captain America’._

_The second photo was the same man in an obviously staged setup, fighting a man in the ss uniform. It was the kind of promotional photograph he was familiar with taking – and yet it certainly wasn’t him, the body and face all wrong._

_The third photo was a different man, a candid photo this time with him looking past the camera into the middle distance. It was in better quality this time, but Steve didn’t think it looked recent either, the edges of the paper too frayed._

_“I – I don’t understand,” he whispered, putting the photos down, even though there were still two more in the pile. “Who are these people? Why –“_

_Fury gave him a kind look – one which Steve gathered was rare. “These men… well, you could say they took over for you. They were – are – also Captain America.”_

Also Captain America _._

 _The words bounced around his skull without settling in, the meaning incomprehensible to him._ He _was Captain America, him, he wanted to argue. This made no sense, none at all._

_Fury leaned down and picked up the photo at the bottom of the pile. It looked the cleanest and freshest of them all, glossy in a way the others weren’t._

_Fury himself barely looked at it before holding it up for Steve to see. It was clearly a recent one – within the past few years or so. A man dressed in the cap costume, talking on a cell phone. Frankly the cell phone was the most unusual part of the picture as far as Steve was concerned, they were magical little boxes –_

_“He is Captain America now.”_

_“But_ I’m _….” The reaction was automatic, the words slipping out even before Fury’s words had sunk in. “I’m Captain America.” The words sounded weak even to him._

_Fury smiled. It wasn’t a happy smile – Steve could feel the pity radiating off him from here. “Of course you are, Captain Rogers.” Well if that didn’t feel like pandering Steve didn’t know what did. “But for now? Your services aren’t required.”_

_Steve had to take a second to realise exactly what Fury was telling him._

_“Oh – oh. Are you – are you sure?” He couldn’t make the words work. It was so unusual for him – how could he make a speech in front of the troops, but somehow this news was just too much for him. It didn’t make sense – but he couldn’t help it either._

_Fury nodded, dropping the photograph on the table. “I’m sure. We’ve had one Captain America for the past 70 years. We don’t need two.”_

_Steve blinked._

_We don’t need two._

_We don’t need_ you _._

_They didn’t need him._

_Steve stood on legs that shook under him. “Can I have a moment?” His voice sounded faint, like there was wool in his ears. It was familiar – it was how the world had sounded before he got the serum._

_Fury didn’t stop him, so Steve took that as acceptance. Trying to keep his balance as best as he could, he walked out of the room, doing his best to keep his balance. His heart thudded against his ribcage._

_Captain America had been a part of his identity for three years now. He was the person they had insisted on putting on all those posters, on sending around on a motivational tour. He had been the face of the army._ Him _._

 _And they had given away his role like it was some sort of inherited title. Like it could be passed from successor to successor, like it didn’t come with a_ responsibility _-_

 _Like it wasn’t_ him _._

_They’d taken this from him._

_His hands began to shake, echoing his legs._

_What was he supposed to_ do _if he…._

_If they weren’t going to let him be Captain America any more._

_He had never even considered that they might have a problem with this._

_Fury found him there fifteen minutes later, when he came out of the room too. Steve got the feeling that he wasn’t looking for him – just that he was leaving, since Steve hadn’t come back in. the man said nothing to him – but the look that he gave him said more than words could have done._

_It was an apology and unrepentance rolled into one. Fury was sorry, but he didn’t care to change what had happened._

_That was probably more painful than anything else he could have done._

**

Steve trudged up the stairs. Even with the nice weather making him feel better, he couldn’t help but find that there really were too many. Why couldn’t the serum have given him the ability to fly, or something? Now that would have been useful.

As he reached the top of the stairs, turning to head towards his apartment, he realised there was someone coming his way. Swerving so that they wouldn’t run into each other, Steve assumed that there would be no talking involved in this interaction. Moving past them, it was only once they had already passed that Steve realised who it had been.

Nadine. She’d given him almost no recognition, no sign of the friendless that she’d shown the other times they’d met.

Well, that wasn’t entirely surprising. He’d definitely got the message last time that her interest in him had waned. Part of him was sad – it had been nice to make a friend, to have someone in the building that he could go to if he needed to. But then again – could he have dealt with having a friend who constantly flirted with him? Had her friendship ever been genuine in the first place?

Steve didn’t know the answers to any of these questions.

As he walked into his apartment, he found himself making excuses for her. Well, he thought, perhaps she was busy, perhaps she just hadn’t realised it was him… or perhaps he was right in the first place.

Ignoring the frustration of not knowing – it would get him nowhere to speculate on it – he went to get himself dinner. There was frustratingly little in his fridge – he’d not gotten round to grocery shopping this week, and so pickings were slim.

Dinner was a quiet affair, as it was most of the time. He chose to not put the television on this time, instead choosing to read while he ate, using the table to help him keep the book open with one hand while he ate with the other. Surprisingly, he found that he was gripped by it – the information much more interesting than he had anticipated.

The only thing that was able to draw him away from his reading was seeing Bucky’s name popping up on his caller ID. In fact, it was the third time that Bucky called that Steve actually noticed – he had been so engrossed in his book that he hadn’t seen the calls coming in.

It was a no brainer to drop his book to talk to Bucky though.

Answering the call, Steve found himself talking to Bucky for several hours.

“Hey Steve? Do you want to go to this new café I discovered the other day? They have some really amazing cakes.”

Steve hummed into his phone, fiddling with the duvet beneath his fingers. “Yeah, that sounds fun. When do you want to go?”

There was silence for a few seconds. Then Bucky replied, “I’m not sure – I was thinking maybe in a few days.”

“Yeah, that should be fine,” Steve said.

They talked until Bucky’s phone ran out of battery. It wasn’t unusual for them to do that in the slightest – Bucky would call him most evenings, so long as he didn’t have too much work to do.

It was as Bucky hung up that Steve realised that their meetings really were like dates. He’d been thinking it for a while. But they were going out to a café, like it was normal for them to go eat cake together.

And, strangely, it didn’t make him uncomfortable at all.

**

it was difficult, when walking into Fury's office, to not be reminded of their first meeting. He'd been thinking about it, since they were coming up to the year mark, and it was so easy to see how he could have handled things differently.

How he could have asked if he could have worked behind the scenes, if he could have just stayed a little more calm and not made Fury think that he was just going to be a blubbering mess about the whole thing. it hadn't gone well, that he knew.

Still - even now looking that the pictures of 'cap through the ages' as some had dubbed it brought him the same kinds of feelings that seeing them the first time did. That was why he'd freaked out so much about Bucky insisted that he look at them - there was a reason he'd avoided doing just that over the past year, after all.

His thoughts turned to the daily life of the current Captain America. Steve still had no interest in learning about the man (at least not by himself. Bucky's interest in telling Steve every detail he could think of was a totally different issue and totally not Steve's problem). Did he come here to meet with Fury too? Did he have totally different relations with Shield? Did Fury treat him in the same way?

He supposed he'd never know the answers unless he asked.

And that was always going to be the difficult part when it came to Shield.

Waiting outside Fury's door like he always did, Steve checked his watch. He was perfectly on time, as always (apart from that one time when the plane had been late, but there had been a full on storm, so he thought he'd been excused. He hadn't - Fury had somehow gotten annoyed like it wasn't _his_ plane and _his_ pilot), and yet Fury was the one who was late this time.

There was nothing to do but be patient this time though. There was nothing he could do to change how busy the director was.

Yet occupying his mind still were the memories of their first meeting. That same frustration fill him now even to think about how casually he had been tossed aside like a broken part.

He had never even been given an explanation for why nobody had reported on his being found.

That was the one thing that had stuck with him all this time. Among all the elation there had been at Shield, all the questions from various members of staff, and the absolute determination to make sure that he was still fine - they had done nothing with that. The fact that the general public had been told nothing other than that his plane had been found had been odd, even at the time. He supposed that Shield had to at least allow the papers to report on that, but after that? There had been nothing. And he'd made sure to check, the moment he got access to the internet.

Perhaps now could be his chance to ask.

He snorted to himself.

The day that Fury willingly gave up his secrets just because Steve asked him to would be the day he got back into the ice. it would never happen.

He hadn't quite made his peace with the fact that he would never know, but he had accepted it nonetheless.

As Fury opened the door, Steve turned around from where he'd been leaning against the wall. The sight of the man's face didn't bring any new emotions to the forefront of his mind - they were already inside him, the frustration and anger he usually felt while in this place.

"Good afternoon, Captain Rogers."

Even the greeting was an intentional slap in the face, Steve was sure. Yeah, okay, perhaps it was nice to be greeted with that title again, but given that Fury was the one who had stripped him of it? It was a little less comforting and a little more condescending.

"Good afternoon." Steve wanted to think that he smiled, but he was sure it was more of a grimace.

Fury let them into the office, familiar as it was, and Steve quietly sat down in the chair. As usual, he contemplated what was going to happen this meeting. Hopefully not another awkward suggestion of something to watch - he'd tried breaking bad, and while he'd had a great deal of sympathy for the man, it had been a little hard to watch.

Fury sat down, leaning back as he often did, his hands clasped together. "How have you been this month?"

Steve was sure, as always, that it was insincere - but he couldn’t resist answering with a little more than his usual reply. "I've been good. I’ve made a few new friends." Okay, maybe he had to word it in a way that didn't make it sound like he had no friends before, which wasn't the impression he wanted to give to Fury. It wouldn't do for the man to know the truth, after all.

Fury raised one eyebrow. "Good, I’m glad to hear it," he said. Was he glad? Steve couldn't tell.

"So, any work for me this time?" Steve asked, cutting to the chase. despite giving that answer, he didn't _actually_ want Fury to ask him more about his new friends. He wouldn't mind complaining about Nadine, but... something told him to keep Bucky out of this, far away from Fury and Shield and this whole mess.

Fury gave him the customary smile. "I’m afraid -"

"Are you sure?" Steve cut in. He knew what Fury was going to say - what he always said. Every time, without fail, he told him that there was nothing he could do. It was a lie - and yet he'd never had the courage to fight him on this until now.

Fury looked surprised. "Yes, I’m quite sure," he replied after a moment of recovery. "Everything is being handled well by our other agents."

Steve leaned back in his chair, feeling a little like he'd be able to keep the upper hand here.

"But I’m not one of your agents," he pointed out. It was true - unlike the other Avengers, who technically had ranks and proper membership here, he had never been offered any of this. It had been something that had irritated him at first - the fact that they refused to treat him like he was really one of theirs - but it could come in handy now if Fury would just recognise that if he didn't have to play by the official rules he could -

"I’m afraid that is irrelevant, Captain Rogers." Fury's voice held a note of finality. It was clear that he wanted Steve to drop the subject.

Steve had never been particularly good at following those kinds of orders though.

"But you know I could help you," he said, leaning forward and making direct eye contact. "I know you've been having some trouble; you could just let me help a little bit, just behind the scenes or something -"

"Absolutely not." Fury stood up. "There is no service we require of you. This meeting is over."

Steve watched as Fury left through one of the side doors. His word choice was telling - Steve could totally have helped, they just didn't want him to. Well, that was fine by him - he didn't have to help them.

He still wouldn't understand why they chose to pay for his housing and food, but neither would he complain about it.

It was a curious thing - even as he made his way out of the building, his thoughts turned to Bucky once more. It had been sad, having to tell Bucky that their weekly meeting would have to be missed today, but the other option would have been to tell him where he was going, and that was something he'd rather not visit.

Still - as he was driven through the streets of dc, he found himself wondering whether he was thinking about his friend a little too much.

**

**Google Search History**

**queer men**

**gay men illegal**

**gay men legal**

**gay marriage when**


	5. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, the reason this chapter is being uploaded slightly later is that i had to completely scrap and rewrite the first scene... it was just so bad... and it took longer to do than i thought it would. I'm not entirely happy with the rest of the chapter, but the first scene is good, at least

It was a regular Tuesday when it happened.

They had been having these meet ups, whereby each one of them would take turns in choosing the venue of their choice. For the most part these were tea shops and cafes, places where it was easy enough to just be casual, to be there for an hour or so in Bucky’s lunch breaks. Steve liked it – and it brought a routine to his life, a sort that had been missing before.

This time Steve had waited outside of the store for Bucky to arrive. It was a nice day, sunny even if it wasn’t too warm, and he wanted to just spend a little more time in it while he could.

He was on his phone, waiting – but also making sure that if Bucky messaged him saying that he was going to be late, he would see it (it had happened more times than he had wanted, and now it had just become a part of their meet ups).

Harried footsteps made their way down the sidewalk in Steve’s direction. Looking up, he saw Bucky rushing towards him, hair all over the place and looking ever so slightly sweaty. His cheeks were flushed, and he was breathing through his mouth, panting a little.

Steve tried to not think too hard about why he thought his friend looked good like that.

“Hey,” he said, smiling as Bucky reached him. “You didn’t have to rush here. I could have waited for longer.”

Bucky took a deep breath, and shook his head. “No, I wanted to get here quickly,” he said. “The meeting I was in ran overtime, and I didn’t want to keep you waiting, not after I had to cut last week’s lunch short.”

Chuckling, Steve shook his head. “You’re too much.” He turned, and opened the door. There was a tinkling chime as he did. “After you.”

Bucky smiled at him in thanks, and went through the door into the shop. As he did, Steve went to follow him, and for the briefest of moments their hands brushed. A tingling sensation, like the tiniest static shock, buzzed through him from that point on his hands where they had touched. He swallowed.

Inside, the café was cool, with whitewashed walls that made it bright. It was small enough to be cosy though – a far cry from the huge Starbucks that they had met in several times.

They sat, and ordered. Steve ended up sitting facing the door and windows – he liked to have the view of the exits, and thankfully Bucky had never called him out on it. This time, however, there was an unexpected benefit to doing so – the light filtering in through the windows, softened by the amount that it was filtered by the buildings across the street, sifted through Bucky’s hair, currently tied up in a messy bun, and made him look the most handsome Steve thought he had ever looked.

Bucky gave him an odd look. “Steve? Are you okay?”

Steve blinked.

Bucky was handsome.

Oh. That was why he’d felt the urge to look things up about being gay. It wasn’t because of getting to know Bucky better. It was for him, even if he hadn’t wanted to admit it to himself.

He was in love with Bucky.

He could practically feel the rose-tinted spectacles falling into place. In fact, he would be very surprised if his eyes weren’t currently turning into love hearts, like they did in cartoons.

Steve’s eyes fell to Bucky’s lips. The other man was saying something, but Steve’s ears were filled with the sound of his own heartbeats, drowning out all other sound. Like a moth drawn to a flame, Steve leaned over the table, entirely transfixed, and kissed Bucky firmly.

It was everything he could have wanted in a kiss. Bucky tasted slightly of chapstick, and a lot of coffee, his lips soft.

Bucky made a small, soft sound. It could have meant anything, really – but it somehow brought Steve back to his senses. Made him realise that he’d just kissed his friend (maybe even his _best_ friend) out of nowhere.

He opened his eyes (when had they closed?) and moved back, back so that he was sat properly in his seat again.

From that position, he could see Bucky’s expression. He looked slightly stunned, mouth still parted, and eyes wide.

Oh god, what if he’d ruined everything? Steve ran a worried hand through his hair. “I’m –“

“I thought you’d never do it…” Bucky’s expression began to morph, moving out of shock, and to one… which looked more pleased. If Steve didn’t know better, he might think it was delight. “I thought I’d have to take the lead in all this stuff.”

Steve felt his breathing speed up. “What?” He said, trying to make sense of what Bucky had just said. “What? No? I’m – I’m sorry, I was going to say that I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was thinking -“ How could he have just kissed Bucky like that out of nowhere?

Then Bucky began to looked confused again. “What do you mean?”

Steve gulped, trying to get a handle on what he was feeling. “I think I like you,” he said. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done it like that though.” He took a deep, shaky breath.

Bucky frowned. “Steve,” he said sounding upset. Steve’s heard dropped. This was it, wasn’t it. He’d gone with his instincts again and it had messed everything up. “Steve, I – I already thought we were dating.”

Steve’s brain filled with white noise. He tried to speak – but nothing would come out. All he could do was make strangled sounds.

Bucky bit his lip. “When I asked you to lunch the first time that was me asking you on a date. I – I thought you knew…”

When Steve didn’t say anything even then, Bucky moved to put a hand on top of his. “I just thought you were taking things slowly… I’ll understand if you don’t – if you don’t want to keep on… doing this, though.”

Steve’s eyes widened. No. No, he couldn’t let that happen. He cleared his throat. “I want to date you. Properly, I mean.” A day ago he might not have been ready for that. But he’d had his epiphany now, and there was very little he’d ever wanted more in his life.

“Are you sure?” Bucky sounded unsure himself, but there was a smile tugging at the corners of his lips, and he looked like he was hopeful.

Steve nodded. “Definitely. I – I do like you. I promise.”

Bucky sighed. “I guess this is on me for not clarifying that I thought these were dates,” he said.

To be fair, that did make a lot of sense, reframed. Steve didn’t imagine that most people had so many outings with friends they didn’t know that well. How had he not seen it before?

“No, it’s okay,” he said. “I was the one who didn’t realise.”

Bucky’s hand was still on top of his. Slowly, testing the waters, steve rotated his hand so that it was palm-up – so that they were holding hands. Bucky grasped it.

“Be my boyfriend? For real, this time?”

Steve couldn’t hold in his grin. “Of course.”

**

Steve looked across at Bucky, the green grass behind him only making him stand out more. The romantic walk in the park had been his idea, to begin with, and it had been a nice enough day out that even when he’d suggested it at the last minute, Bucky had jumped at the idea.

And so, half an hour (and one frantic change of clothes) later, here they were, taking in the sights of central park. He’d visited the place plenty of times growing up, but he’d not even considered going back here until Bucky had suggested it as a place to go.

“It’s so pretty,” he remarked, voice a little breathless.

Bucky gave him an odd look. “Well, yeah. It always is. You said you’ve been here before, right?”

Steve shrugged. “Yeah, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t just as beautiful every time,” he said. And it was true – there was something about the beauty of nature that really captured his imagination, made him remember that there was more to life than the routine he’d made for himself here.

In any case, his brain was a little put off by the small changes he could see in the place. Most of it was entirely recognisable – but it was the little things that seemed to make all the difference. Despite the fact that he himself was bigger than the last time he’d been here, every tree was a bit taller, a bit fuller than the last time he saw them. There were new trees and bushes as well, adding a new flavour to the place. Not an unwelcome one, just one that was different.

Of course, the other biggest change that he noticed was one which was entirely down to him. The serum having fixed his colour-blindness, he knew that what he was seeing now wasn’t just down to the passage of time, but the actual changes to his biology. The colors were more vibrant now, more exciting, just… more. As well as there being more of them.

Honestly Steve didn’t know who he’d rather experience this with, even if he couldn’t tell Bucky about it.

They spotted a bench a little way in the distance, and it seemed like a good place to have a sit down and relax.

Steve couldn’t resist commenting on their surroundings again. “Don’t you always think that nature is better when you haven’t seen it in a while?”

Bucky shrugged, leaning into his side. “Maybe.”

Steve side eyed him. “Do you… not like it?”

“I don’t know, I’m kinda allergic to some naturey things, so it’s sort of a double-edged sword.” He happened to sneeze at this point, really hammering home his point.

Feeling bad about getting weird about nature, Steve said, “oh, sorry, I didn’t know.” He was used to having a ton of allergies himself, and he knew what it could be like.

Bucky shrugged again, nonchalantly. “It’s okay, it’s not like it’s something I try to broadcast. And I take my antihistamines plenty, so I don’t really get affected by it too much.”

Huh, effectively a cure for allergies. Steve would have killed for something like that back in the day. But, he also knew that just because he knew what it was like to suffer from a lot of allergies, that didn’t mean that he knew anything about the way that they actually worked. Maybe he should google it later. The internet truly was a wonderful way of finding out anything you wanted to know. He’d not truly understood how helpful it was until he’d met Bucky, who would google anything and everything, any time he had any questions. It really was an excellent way of getting knowledge, and Steve sometimes wondered how he ever managed to misunderstand its use.

Steve couldn’t help but comment, “boy am I glad I don’t have any allergies any more.” He knew it might sound a little callous, after Bucky had said that he suffered from it too. It didn’t make it any less true though – he really didn’t miss that time.

Bucky shifted slightly. “You know I still don’t understand the magic cure you got as a kid.” Ever since Steve had told Bucky about how he’d gotten better like that, he’d taken to calling it magic. Whenever he brought it up, Steve became uncomfortable. The closer he got to the truth, the more Steve had to try to get him away from that train of thinking. He’d tried so hard to make sure that his identity stayed secret that he didn’t want that connection to be what gave it away.

Steve had to change the topic. “So how’s your research been doing? Didn’t you say you’d been approached to write another article?”

That seemed to perk Bucky right up. “Right, yeah they did – I’m not sure that I like what they suggested though. I mean, aren’t there already enough books out there that want to compare one Captain America to another?” He curled his lip. “Like, sure I’d be able to have plenty of things to reference, but that doesn’t mean that I’d have anything else to add to the conversation.”

Right. Bucky hadn’t mentioned that that was what he’d been approached to write about. Generally he managed to forget about the fact that there were people out there who made a living writing about him. At least Bucky didn’t usually do anything on him – it would feel strange to have his boyfriend writing about him while they were together. It wasn’t a good feeling. But he had to ignore it for now, especially if it was something that Bucky wanted to do. “Which ones were they asking you to compare?”

“Well they suggested that I should do Ronnie and Eric, but I feel like that’s the one that’s been done the most? Besides, it’s not like I’m an expert on Ronnie – I’d have to do so much unnecessary research on him, and it doesn’t feel like it would be worth it, you know?” Bucky groaned.

It was difficult to not hear those words as Bucky not thinking that he was worth it.

Logically he knew that it would save him a lot of heartache to just tell Bucky the truth. But that would make everything difficult – and would raise questions about why it took him so long to tell him. No, he would simply have to stick with that he was doing. And that meant helping Bucky with what he wanted to do as much as he could. “True, it might not be worth it overall.”

Bucky didn’t seem to notice Steve’s internal struggle. “Exactly! It would take me so much longer to write, and I’m not even sure I could make a good article out of it already.” If nothing else, Steve knew that Bucky was good at what he did, he knew what he was doing.

There was nothing he could do but be supportive of whatever Bucky chose to do. “I’m sure you’d do a good job though.” He nudged Bucky with his shoulder. “I mean, you know loads of stuff about Eric, so surely you’d not have to do much about that side of things.”

Bucky sighed. “True, but that wouldn’t make up for a lack of knowledge about Ronnie.”

Steve tried to still stay supportive. “But you’d still be able to do it, is my point.”

Bucky hummed lowly, still sounding unconvinced. “I guess, but I’m still not sold on it. I’m probably going to ask them if I can do another one, because if nothing else I think there’s a space for doing a comparison like that for one of the others.” He almost sounded sad about it, and Steve tried to not take it too personally. Bucky didn’t mean him personally. He didn’t know that he was talking about his boyfriend.

“That’s true, I guess.” He still had to agree with what Bucky was saying.

Bucky began to sound more and more frustrated the more he talked. “I know you don’t know a lot about the whole historian community, so I know you don’t know half of what I’m talking about… but at some point I might have to bounce ideas off you for an angle for it. Like, doing a general comparison could be the subject of an entire book, so I think I’m going to have to pick one thing and stick to that.”

Steve squirmed. While Bucky was totally right, he didn’t know much about the whole thing (there was only so much information he could take in when Bucky had been in all of this for years), it felt odd to have Bucky point that out. So, he went out of his way to try to offer up a solution, of some kind. “Why don’t you try asking your students about it? Surely they’d know more.”

“The really eager ones might, but I think the rest might just get bored by it,” Bucky said. “Plus it probably wouldn’t be relevant to the course, and even if it was it might mess with whatever assignments I want to give them down the road.” Those were some relevant points, even if Steve didn’t know exactly how any of that worked.

“I guess that makes sense.” Steve still thought it would be a better idea than asking him, but he couldn’t say no.

“Yeah, so expect that to happen in a few weeks.” Bucky laughed. “I’m like 99% sure that I’ll end up writing one article or another, I just don’t know which one.” He shook his head, his mood clearly improved with the idea of writing an article that he would actually enjoy watching.

“Well I doubt I’ll be much help, but I can try.” He wanted to cover his bases, to make sure that he made it clear to Bucky that he didn’t know that he’d be able to help at all. Saying no to his boyfriend wasn’t an option though, like it wasn’t physically possible.

“Thanks.” Bucky’s big eyes looked up at him gratefully. It was what made Steve think that maybe he would be able to help after all – since he couldn’t not do it. Plus he did know _some_ things about the general topic.

Not enough though. “Maybe before you do that I’ll do some research so I know what you’re talking about,” he said, thinking that he was possibly going to make it easier on himself in some way. He’d have a few weeks to do it, after all.

“Well you still have those books to read that I suggested.” Bucky elbowed him lightly, grinning. It was clearly a joke, but Steve still felt bad for not having read them yet – it would have been a legitimate point if Bucky had gotten annoyed at him for it.

He gulped, unable to keep it a joke. “I know, I’ll get round to getting more read at some point,” he said, chewing on the inside of his lip. It had been months since he bought those books, and he had had plenty of time to read more, and he hadn’t put as much effort into it as he could have.

Once Bucky seemed to realise that Steve was being serious, the joking that Bucky had been doing seemed to fade. “Really, no pressure, you don’t have to if you don’t want to,” he said, turning kind eyes on Steve.

“No, I do want to!” Steve said, eyes widening. The last thing he wanted was for Bucky to end up thinking that Steve didn’t care about his interests. “I promise you, I will.”

Bucky nodded, looking like he believed Steve. Then he added, “Oh, that reminds me, I found another book for you to read. I think it might do a better job of explaining things, maybe.”

Steve smiled. Bucky really was doing his best to make it the easiest for him to do the reading, and he appreciated that. “Thanks!”

“You’re welcome.”

**

Steve looked around the campus. There were trees, and green spaces, and – the calming noise of several hundred students simultaneously having a breakdown.

He didn’t relate exactly to the experience (it had been a long time since he had been to any kind of school) but it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing either.

Checking the text that Bucky had sent him, he double checked the office that he’d been told to go to.

Feeling like a bit of a fraud, like he wasn’t supposed to be here, he pulled his baseball cap further down his head to hide his face better, and began to walk again.

Finally finding the building that Bucky was supposedly at, Steve carefully made his way inside. The building, in some ways, reminded him of every other school building he’d ever been, even with the time difference. The walls were covered in various fliers and posters, the floors a pale linoleum and the smell of paper in the air.

Hunching his shoulders down, he headed down the corridor to where Bucky had said the stairs were. Thankfully there were few students around – although the few he could see were crowding around the elevator.

It made it even easier for him to jog up the stairs, eager to get to where Bucky was.

Time seemed to take on an odd quality – the nerves of the thing and his excitement combining to make it feel like it was passing slowly and quickly at the same time.

When he reached the top of the corridor, he realised that he didn’t know which way to turn. Bucky’s office was number 110, and the first one he could see was number 53. It took a few tries, but eventually after three wrong turns and one time nearly falling down the stairs, he counted down the doors to Bucky’s.

106, 108…. 110. There it was.

Steve lifted a hand, about to knock on the door –

The door flew open. “…right, so if you just…” Bucky did a double take, from where he’d been looking at the student next to him. They were walking out of the office, and Steve took a step back, unsure whether he should be here or not. “Steve,” Bucky breathed.

The student glanced between them.

Steve watched as Bucky coughed – straightening his expression and turning to the student. “Yes, you just need to believe in yourself. You’ll do fine.”

The student gave them an uncertain smile – but she left anyway, with a wave and a, “bye professor!”

Once she was out of earshot, Bucky turned back to Steve. He had a bashful smile, his expression almost apologetic. “You’re early,” he said, winding his arms around Steve’s waist. “If I’d known you were going to come here now I would have –“

Steve kissed him, quieting his words.

Their eyes flutter closed. Steve couldn’t believe it – it was finally happening, they were finally…

Bucky pulled off him. “Wait!” He whisper-yelled. “Not here!”

Steve found himself being dragged back into the office, Bucky’s hand gripping the front of his hoodie. The door was slammed behind them.

Bucky let out a dramatic sigh. “That was close.” At Steve’s questioning look, Bucky said, “well we couldn’t go around making out in the corridor, in front of all the students.”

Right. Steve rubbed the back of his neck. That was a pretty good point, he couldn’t go about sabotaging his boyfriend’s job. “Sorry,” he said sheepishly. “I guess I was just too excited to see you.”

Bucky laughed, winding his arms around Steve’s middle. “Yeah, I bet you were,” he said, placing a kiss on the tip of Steve’s nose.

Grinning back, Steve began to look around Bucky’s office. “You know, I think this is just the kind of place I would have pegged you for having,” he said, giving the other one last squeeze and letting go.

Posters covered the walls of the office. Not just loose, but fully framed posters. Even in his uneducated state, Steve knew that they were from throughout the last century, the colors, art styles and clothing all dead giveaways.

It brightened up the room somewhat though – and it was necessary, because the rest of the room looked pretty much like every professor room he could imagine. There were mugs strewn everywhere, some half full of coffee (unsurprising, given how much his boyfriend drank of the stuff). In equal quantities, there were notebooks, some of which Steve thought he recognised, covering almost every other spare spot in the room, including the desk, and the couch. There were also a few piles of paper, which Steve was pretty sure were assignments. That was a lot of marking to do – Steve was reminded why he had never been tempted to take up Bucky’s profession.

There was a large bookcase taking up one wall of the office. Even at a glance, Steve saw books that he recognised – some the same as the ones Bucky had made him buy, and others ones that he had simply seen Bucky reading. There weren’t just scholarly books though – there were others that looked like they were as old as Steve. In fact, there were a whole two shelves full of the familiar looking books – and they were calling Steve’s name.

Reaching out a hand, Steve went to run a finger along them, almost longing to feel the familiar roughness on his skin again –

But Bucky’s hand shot out and grabbed his wrist before he could get there. “I don’t think so, mister,” he said, his voice teasing, but lightly chiding at the same time. “Those are too old, you can’t just go touching them.”

Right. Just because they looked new to Steve’s eyes didn’t mean they actually were. “Sorry,” he said, moving his hand so that it was holding onto Bucky’s instead (it definitely wasn’t so that he wouldn’t be tempted to touch them again, no). “It’s all just so interesting.” And it wasn’t untrue. After hearing Bucky talk about his interests so often that Steve found himself interested in them too.

Bucky beamed at him. “I know right?”

Steve nodded, Bucky’s enthusiasm contagious. “I don’t think we’ve even scratched the surface of everything you know about these guys,” he said, gently teasing. “I think I’m going to have to set you homework about them.” He moved closer, a wicked glint in his eye.

Steve took a half step back, eyes widening. In school he’d never been the type to have a crush on his teachers – he was usually having a hard enough time hearing them to begin with – but there was something about having his boyfriend act like they were having some salacious teacher-student affair that made everything feel very different suddenly.

Fortunately, Bucky only stuck at the act for a few seconds more – enough to make Steve deeply confused on the inside, but not enough to actually make things weird between them. Breaking out into full on cackling, Bucky bent over with laughter, presumably at whatever horrified expression Steve was making.

“You’re so mean.” Steve pouted.

Bucky didn’t seem too bothered by Steve’s reaction, simply giggling to himself and turning back to the room. “Don’t worry, I don’t act like that with everyone I invite into my office,”

Steve snorted. “You know, weirdly enough that was just what I was thinking.”

“Shut up,” Bucky laughed. “Anyway, where do you want to go?”

Steve took his hand. “I don’t mind.”

It didn’t matter, because they would be doing it together.

**

As the building loomed up ahead of them, Steve found himself clutching Bucky's hand even harder. the houses were tall, intimidating, and expensive-looking. if he had had the choice, ever, in his own apartment, this was the kind of place he would have chosen to live in.

"You didn't mention that your place was so nice," he commented, trying to ignore that small spark of jealousy that flared inside him. seriously, why did shield have to stick him in such a shitty place? They definitely had the money to put him someplace nicer (like this, or maybe somewhere else), but they'd chosen to go for somewhere cheaper. It was only one of the many reasons he had a grudge against them.

Bucky laughed. "Oh, it's not that great. We can never keep it clean for the life of us - plus it's totally been renovated inside. It's not half as old-looking there, don't worry." He said that as if Steve wouldn’t have loved that.

They came closer, and sure, Steve could see the weathering on the building now, the signs of time passing for the place. It was disconcerting, and he tried not to think about it too much.

Bucky unlocked the front door, stamping his shoes a little. "Come on in," he said to Steve, turning back with a smile.

Frankly by this point Steve would have followed him even if they weren't boyfriends by now - that smile just had that effect on him.

Even with all the claims about it not being all that nice, Steve was sure that it couldn’t be half as bad as Bucky made it out to be. He'd never wanted to bring it up, but finally seeing the place only made Steve wonder about it even more.

Bucky opened the door fully, letting both of them in. (They may have needed to take a quick second to kiss while on the steps, since it made Bucky the same height as Steve - it was adorable and Steve just couldn't help himself.)

It was nice and warm inside - just what Steve would have expected of a place with walls that thick. The rest of the interior though? Yeah, Bucky had totally been right, he would never have pegged this place for being light and airy. There were extra windows in the back that probably weren't original, making the stairs much nicer than they were ever meant to be.

Steve had hoped that perhaps he'd be able to escape the curse of stairs, but alas, he could not. Bucky led them up one flight, then another. (Steve didn't miss the fact that Bucky's breathing got heavy the further they climbed - it was clear that neither of them were particularly enjoying this moment.)

"Here we are," Bucky announced after they'd climbed for a minute or so. "Home sweet home." He turned to Steve. "Seriously, it's not much. Don't - don't have your expectations too high, okay?"

Steve bent down and kissed his forehead. "I'm sure it's lovely," he murmured.

Bucky blushed, something Steve had become quite used to him doing. "Thanks," he muttered back, quickly turning away. Just because he did it a lot didn't mean that Bucky himself had quite accepted it.

Finally, the door was opened. It was immediately clear that this was a small apartment, since it opened directly onto the living room. Steve looked around the place. Perhaps Bucky hadn’t been exaggerating about the state of the apartment – but at the same time it wasn’t as bad as it could have been.

“I don’t see that much mess,” he said.

Bucky elbowed him lightly. “Oh, shut up,” he said, clearly not believing him.

Steve made a fake wounded noise, ready to defend his position. “No, really,” he said, “it’s untidy, sure, but it’s not crazy messy. It’s nice to…” he trailed off, realising that the response of ‘it’s nice to see a place which actually looks lived in’ wouldn’t go down very well.

It was true though – he couldn’t help but mentally compare it to his own apartment. Despite the front room seeming slightly bigger than Steve’s own, it somehow seemed cosier, smaller, more full of _things_ than he would even have tried to accomplish in his own apartment. So many books, papers, stray clothes all over the place – and three couches covered all of these things.

“Why do you need to have so many couches?” Steve asked, grinning. “I thought it was just you and your roommate?”

Bucky shrugged, taking hold of Steve’s hand and pulling him further into the apartment. “You know, in case we have people over,” he said, heading for the emptiest couch. Practically draping himself over it, he grinned, putting both of his arms along the back of the couch. “Come join me?”

Feeling little awkward, as you always did when making yourself at home in someone else’s home, Steve practically sat on the edge of the couch.

Chuckling at him, Bucky pulled him closer.

It took Steve longer than it should have done for him to realise that Bucky had pulled him over to make out.

Some indeterminate amount of time later, some noise distracted him. Steve’s lips froze. A door inside the apartment had just opened. Someone else was here.

Bucky didn’t seem bothered by this, continuing to wriggle on his lap and kiss enthusiastically. Steve did his best to reciprocate – it wasn’t like he wanted to stop – but that knowledge stayed in the back of his mind.

“Jeez, did you want this to be the first time I meet your boyfriend?”

A voice broke through the sound of their kisses.

It seemed to be the thing that woke Bucky up from the haze he’d been in. Steve watched as his eyes fluttered open, still slightly glazed over, and he took a deep breath. “Fuck off, dude,” he said without turning away.

Steve didn’t know whether he wanted to laugh or cover his face with embarrassment. Or, alternatively, sink into the couch, and leave this place altogether.

Nope, he couldn’t let this go on. Pushing Bucky gently away, he tried to get somewhat presentable.

Bucky’s roommate was still watching them. It was a bit weird, actually, to be scrutinized like that. “I’m Steve,” he said, sticking a hand out.

The roommate slapped it. For a moment Steve thought this might be some sort of rejection, like he was being slapped away metaphorically.

Then the two of them, the roommate and Bucky, began to laugh at him, and he began to realise that he must have missed something. He did know that people had strange ways of greeting one another nowadays, and maybe this was one of them?

“Where have you been all day?” Bucky asked the mystery man, sitting up slightly.

The man shrugged. “I had to go grocery shopping,” he said, showing them the plastic bag he was holding. “I would have thought you’d be happy about that,” his tone was playful.

Bucky laughed. “shut up, you know I’m the one that usually goes grocery shopping,” he said, swatting at him as much as he could from his perch of Steve’s lap.

His roommate danced out of the way. “That’s because you’re too boring,” he called behind him.

Bucky stood up from Steve’s lap, holding a hand out to him afterwards. Steve took it, and stood up, unsure what was going to come next.

Bucky began to pull him towards the bedrooms. “We’re going to go have fun by ourselves then,” he called after his roommate.

“Sorry about that,” Bucky said when they were out of earshot, chuckling. “I suppose the thing I really should have been warning you about was my roommate. I swear he’s not usually this bad – or, actually he is, but usually only with me. I wasn’t expecting that to happen with you around.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Steve wasn’t about to admit that he’d been entirely lost for most of that interaction. “it was kinda funny.”

“I’m glad you think so,” Bucky said as he opened the door to his room.

There were a certain amount of similarities between his room and his office, Steve noticed. There were similar piles of paper sitting around, and

“I would have thought you’d have had more captain America posters in here,” he joked, looking around.

“Shut up,” Bucky laughed, hitting him lightly in the arm. “All of those are in my office.”

Steve walked in a little further. There were a collection of framed photographs on Bucky’s dresser, and he stepped closer to look at them. It was with a start that he realised that there was one of the two of them in pride of place. He recognised the picture – it had been one that Bucky took on their second date out, to one of the museums. Bucky had insisted on taking a selfie together when Steve had mentioned that one of the pieces was his favourite, and despite it being a little awkward trying to do it around all the other people in the museum, it had been a fun experience.

It was a sweet gesture, and Steve hadnt even known that it was there before now.

Steve looked across at Bucky.

His boyfriend seemed to have noticed what he was looking at – and was busy looking bashful about it. “I just liked the picture, okay?”

Steve smiled at him, turning to look at the rest of them. “Nothing wrong with that,” he said. He reached out, stroking the frames lightly, able to see the affection that Bucky must have for these pictures in order to have them out like this.

Shifting them around slightly, he noticed that some of them were less visible, hidden away.

One of the other pictures that was pushed far to the back was small, and unassuming. It showed Bucky, looking a good few years younger, surrounded by an older man and woman, and three younger women.

Steve couldn’t resist going to pick it up. “What’s this?”

A second later, the photograph was plucked from his grasp. “My family,” Bucky replied tersely. He placed the photo where Steve had found it, right at the back where it was barely visible.

Steve stared at the pictures. It really didn’t seem the time to ask questions about Bucky’s family, not when his boyfriend’s mood had been entirely brought down by it. As it was, Bucky had barely talked about his family already – it became all the more obvious that there was something deeper going on.

From that moment, something seemed off that day. The easy smiles that had characterised Bucky’s mannerisms disappeared for a while.

Feeling awkward, Steve said nothing for a minute or two.

Knowing that there was little else he could do, Steve went to sit beside Bucky on his bed. Despite the fact that Bucky had closed himself off, sitting leaning against the wall, bringing his knees up to his chest and wrapping his arms around them, he knew that leaving right now would be the wrong choice.

He had to let Bucky wait if he wanted him to tell him anything.

For a good while, they sat in silence. Steve thought about talking himself, so that it at least wouldn’t feel so awkward – but he got the feeling that Bucky wouldn’t have appreciated it.

“I haven’t lived with my family for quite some time,” Bucky said finally. “You know that I moved out early for my accelerated college course. They were happy for me at the time, but… the more I found myself here, the more I moved towards the humanities instead of something ‘better’, like the sciences or math or something, the less happy they were with me. And then came the sexuality thing, and… and that was sort of the end of that.”

Steve put a careful hand on his knee. “Are… are you sure that it’s your entire family that thinks that?” Part of Steve found it incredibly difficult to believe that anyone could hate Bucky enough to cut him out of their lives. Not _Bucky_.

Bucky frowned. “Well, you’re right, it wasn’t all of them,” he admitted. “My sister still keeps in contact. And my mom sometimes tries to talk to me, but it’s kinda difficult when she doesn’t seem to have understood that I’ve picked my career path for sure now.” At Steve’s questioning look, he added, “yeah, it was mostly my dad that didn’t want me to do any of this.” He shrugged, shoving himself further back into the bed, curling up on himself.

This time, Steve didn’t want to let Bucky feel like he was alone with this. This time, and he copied Bucky, he kept close, pressing his shoulder up against Bucky’s, hopefully in a comforting way. “Well that’s good then,” he said, trying to sound as positive as he possibly could. “If your mom and your sister want to still know you, it’s better than nothing.”

The sigh that Bucky let out seemed to come from deep within him. “I know,” he said. “I know that I should probably be grateful for what I’ve got.” He snuck a side-glance at Steve. “I know it’s probably super disrespectful for me to complain about my family when they’re still alive in front of you,” he said morosely. “You’d probably give anything to have your parents back, and here I am, complaining about how bad mine are.” He buried his head in his knees, like he was hiding himself away from Steve.

For a moment, Steve couldn’t form any thoughts. The idea that Bucky would – would even think that was unthinkable. “No,” he said when he found his voice again. “Not at all. Bucky, your experiences are your own. I can’t pretend to know what it’s like to have – to have parents that don’t support you, but I do know that everyone’s relationships with their family are different. I’m sure that if my parents had treated me like that…” It wouldn’t have been unreasonable, after all, for his mom to tell him to stop with the art nonsense and spend more time working in a way that would get them more money. It wouldn’t have been something he could have blamed her for in the slightest. “Well, I can’t say what I’d think of my mom if she’d treated me like that before she died, but I’m sure I wouldn’t have liked her half as much,” he said decisively.

Bucky sniffled. “Are you sure?” He asked weakly.

“I’m sure,” Steve said. “I promise you, you don’t have to walk on eggshells around me because of it. It’s not something that I had even thought about before now. Feel free to complain as much as you like.”

Bucky turned his head to look at him with one eye. “Are you sure?” He asked, sounding sceptical.

Steve nodded. “I promise.”

“Thank you.”

They sat in silence some more.

Then, “my sister sent me a picture of her and her boyfriend the other day. It was pretty cute. Wanna see?”

“Sure!”

**

The first time they shared a bed it was nerve wracking.

It had started as amazing – Steve had brought Bucky round to his own apartment for a second time, and they’d had a really great evening. For once Steve had a good selection of food in, and they’d had a fun time coming up with what meals they could make with it. Steve had been surprised at how inventive Bucky could be with all of it, until Bucky reminded him of how long he’d spent as a student – that kind of magic sort of came with the territory.

Then Bucky had demanded use of Steve’s Netflix, to show him more movies he’d not seen yet. He’d already known that people found it strange if you hadn’t seen certain shows or movies – that was the whole point of his list – but Bucky really took that to the next level.

The show was interesting – and he had to admit, the concept of someone being frozen and waking up 3 million years in the future was closer to his own experience than Bucky would ever know.

As they sat and watched, the later it got, and the less likely it became that Bucky was going to be able to go home without being too tired. It was something that weighed on Steve’s mind every time he checked what the time was – and yet he still couldn’t bring himself to bring it up, to stop spending time with Bucky.

Bucky nuzzled closer into Steve’s chest, more and more of his weight leaning on him – and it took Steve a second, along with a gentle snore, to realise that Bucky had fallen asleep.

Awkwardly, Steve put his arm around Bucky, keeping him in place as he slept. The position was incredibly difficult to remain in, with Bucky’s shoulder digging into his chest – but Steve couldn’t bear to remove himself.

Even though he knew full well that it would be better to wake Bucky, to move them to somewhere more comfortable and more appropriate for sleep, like the bed, he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Not when it would stop him from being comfortable – and frankly that was the most important thing here.

Steve didn’t know how long they sat there for. Eventually the tv turned itself off from being unchanged for so long – and there was nothing Steve could do about it. Or rather, nothing Steve wanted to do about it.

And so he sat there, perfectly contented, with Bucky in his arms.

He didn’t mean to drift off himself. In fact, he didn’t even realise that he had until he was awoken by the feeling of blood rushing back into his arm.

Eyelids half glued shut, Steve did his best to peer through them. Bucky swam into view, his face sleepy but concerned. “Steve!” he hissed. “Steve, it’s 2am. Why am I still here?”

Reaching one tingly hand up, Steve rubbed his eyes. Ah, now he could see. “I… I don’t know,” he answered. Everything was a sleepy blur – why were they on the couch in the first place?

Bucky rubbed his face with his hands. His hair was still adorably mussed up – it was likely that he didn’t even realise how messed up it had gotten just from sleeping funny. (Steve couldn’t resist smoothing it down subtly by stroking through his hair.) “Should I go home?” He asked, sounding frustrated, tense. “I don’t have any of my overnight stuff here. I need to get my things for work that are in my room so that I can bring them in with me… I should leave, right?”

Despite the fact that Bucky made some very good points (yes, he had none of his belongings except what could fit in his pockets with him), Steve felt like Bucky was trying to convince him, rather than himself. Bucky looked at him imploringly, as if to say ‘please tell me I’m making the right decision here’.

But, even though he’d been the more timid one in their relationship so far, Steve found himself wanting Bucky to stay so badly that he couldn’t allow anything else to happen. So, he shook his head. “No. you should stay here.”

Bucky blinked. “Wait, what? Did you not hear what I just said? I don’t have my –“

“I heard what you said,” Steve interrupted him, keeping his voice calm. “But I have a spare toothbrush in the bathroom if you want one. You can borrow my clothes if you want them. And we can wake up early to get you over to your apartment in the morning.”

“Are you sure?” Bucky still seemed hesitant.

Steve nodded. “Absolutely.”

Giving Bucky the things he had promised, Steve left him alone for a while as they both got ready to get into bed properly. Knowing that they were about to share a bed gave Steve those domestic feels again – he knew that this was a big thing, especially since he had been so unsure about making them that intimate before.

But he wasn’t worried about it either. He got into his regular pajamas, and made his way towards the bathroom. Knocking on the door, he called through it, “Buck? You decent in there?”

The sound of the lock being undone came soon after. Bucky opened the door slowly, sticking his face round it. “Just about, yeah,” he said. “I still need to brush my teeth though.”

“Me too…” Steve said, knowing what he was hinting but not wanting to make Bucky uncomfortable if he wasn’t up for it.

Seeming slightly tense, Bucky opened the door further. “You’d better come in and get it done then.” The yawn that he let out after only made Steve remember that it was incredibly late, and they needed to get to sleep as quickly as possible.

Following Bucky into his bathroom, Steve noted the neatly folded pile of Bucky’s clothes that lay on the floor. The fact that his boyfriend was concerned enough to make sure that he was being tidy even outside of his own home was a nice touch.

They finished getting ready for bed in domestic silence. It was pleasant – Steve knew that he didn’t need to speak, and he and Bucky managed to communicate mostly though smiles as they did.

Before this point, there had only been a scant few times where Bucky went into his room. Most of the time, they stayed in the living room, with Bucky claiming that since Steve had no roommate, that they needed to take advantage of that. Frankly, Steve didn’t see what difference it made, but he would do pretty much anything to make Bucky happy, so there was never anything done about it.

This time held more significance than the other times Bucky had come into his bedroom, and they both knew it. Steve allowed Bucky to lead the way.

As they entered the room, Bucky made a beeline for the bed. In his role as ‘person whose room it is’, Steve went over to close the curtains. It made a lot of difference to have them closed at night – he’d splurged and gotten himself blackout curtains for the very reason that it blocked out the majority of the city light – and immediately the room was plunged into darkness.

It was memory alone which allowed Steve to get into bed without bumping into anything. Slipping under the covers, he rolled onto his side, facing Bucky, almost expecting to have some form of conversation.

Steve had settled into bed happily. Contrary to what he had thought was going to happen, beside him, Bucky fell asleep almost instantly. the moment his head hit the pillow, he began to snore softly – as though there had been no time in between them waking up and getting into bed.

Tonight, Steve was less lucky about getting to sleep in good time. The soft sounds of Bucky’s breathing weren’t a distraction so much as they were unusual to his sleepy brain – it made it difficult to concentrate on getting to sleep.

He tossed, and turned – and found that it was very difficult to get to sleep intentionally when there was someone taking up space that he usually had.

He didn’t even mind though. That was the strange thing.

And, as he got to sleep that night, he was contented.

**

‘wanna come out to a bar tonight?’

Steve stared down forlornly at Bucky’s text, the first one he’d sent him about this evening. The only other thing Bucky had said about it was the time and place – and Steve had to admit, he’d assumed that it was going to be a date.

So, it had surprised him when he entered said bar, only to see Bucky surrounded by people. It was clear that he knew them well – they were all talking and laughing together – but Steve didn’t recognise any of them.

Frankly, he still wasn’t sure that he should interrupt, whether Bucky had sent the message to him accidentally. And so here he sat, sipping a beer by himself. He’d not really felt the need to frequent bars in his time here – he had nobody to go with, and there was something incredibly sad about drinking in a bar by himself. If he was going to drink alone, he may as well do it from the comfort of his own apartment. This wasn’t exactly how he imagined his first time in a 21st century bar going.

He did his best not to stare too much. It wouldn’t do for the people around him to think that he was some creep, staring at others from the corner of a bar.

But seeing Bucky so animated? Having so much fun with his friends? Resisting was too difficult, it drew his eyes to Bucky like a moth to a flame. He couldn’t bring himself to quench that flame just yet.

It was as he was looking at Bucky checking his phone - _god he was so cute when he thought no one was looking, his hair falling delicately over his face_ \- that he let his guard down. He missed the beginning of Bucky looking up at him.

They locked eyes.

It didn’t escape him that at that exact moment, his phone buzzed. It was unlikely that it would be anyone else but Bucky messaging him – and, as they stared at each other, Steve began to feel bad.

A grin crept over Bucky’s face. It was a lot like the grin he’d seen on Bucky’s face before, when he’d been laughing with his friends – but it was also different somehow, in a gentler way.

Bucky stood up, winding his way through the circle of people surrounding him. It took Steve longer than it should have done to realise that he was coming this way, to him.

Instinctively, he sat up slightly straighter.

“Hey Stevie! I didn’t know you were here yet!” Bucky said, animatedly, placing his drink on Steve’s table and scooching his way around the booth.

Steve stiffened up, even as Bucky pressed himself up against him. “Yeah, I’ve just been drinking,” he said, gesturing to his half-empty glass. He didn’t want to make it sound like he’d been avoiding him.

Bucky giggled. “Yeah, I can see that.” He leaned up and kissed Steve’s cheek. “But what are you doing over here? You should come join me and my friends!”

“Oh, I don’t –“

Steve didn’t’ know what he was going to try to say to Bucky, but he was lucky that at this moment, one of Bucky’s friends made their way over to their table.

“Bucky!” He exclaimed, resting one hand on the table. “What are you doing over here?”

Steve looked towards his boyfriend, unsure how they were meant to react to this. Was Bucky out to his friends? He was pretty sure that he was, but there was no telling when it came to co-workers. Bucky only talked about his relationships with his co-workers on occasion – and not often enough that Steve knew who was who and knew who was accepting.

Bucky grinned up at his friend. “This is my boyfriend!” He exclaimed, not quite answering the question, but definitely drawing attention to them. He placed one hand on Steve’s arm – it felt oddly possessive, which seemed sort of unnecessary given Bucky’s announcement already given.

Comprehension began to dawn on the friend’s face. “Ooh, this is the boyfriend,” he said, beginning to grin. “I’ve heard a lot about you. I’m James.” He held out a hand.

Gingerly, Steve shook it. “I’m Steve,” he said, knowing that it was very likely that James already knew that.

Beside him, Bucky began to pout. “Yeah, and he takes far too much pleasure in having the same name as me,” he said – and the two of them glared playfully at each other. Right – Steve had forgotten that technically Bucky’s first name was James.

He was sure that Bucky wasn’t meaning to do it – but as the two Jameses began to have a mock argument, he felt a little left out. Bucky’s tipsiness probably didn’t help at all, not when they had both clearly been in here for a while already.

Eventually, the argument stopped, and Bucky seemed to remember why he was here in the first place. The whole time Steve had been passive-aggressively sipping his drink – he may as well do something instead of just being ignored, right? “Steve you should come meet the rest of our friends,” Bucky said, turning pleading eyes on him. He began to fiddle with Steve’s sleeve, as though he was attempting to tug Steve towards the bar that way.

James had got up a left to re-join the group, leaving the two of them alone. Steve couldn’t deny that it did, to an extent, relax him a bit – not having to deal with other people’s expectations for him always did that – and he hummed. “I’m not sure I want to,” he said, holding onto his glass. “I mean, are you all just going to talk about history without me?” he tried to make it a joke, and in this state, Bucky did seem amused.

“We’ll try not to,” he giggled, “but I make no promises.”

Bucky took hold of his hand more firmly, and stood up. “Come on, come meet them,” he said, beginning to tug. Steve knew that he could have easily resisted, if he wanted to – but, surprisingly, he found that he didn’t want to.

He allowed himself to be dragged around the table, and towards the gaggle of professors which were still stood near the bar.

“Hey!” Bucky began to wave at his friends, as though he was trying to make a scene about it. Steve’s attempts at tugging on his shirt in protest fell on deaf… shoulders, and before he knew it they were well within the circle.

“Well we all knew that Bucky had himself a new boyfriend, but he didn’t tell us you were so… so…” the first woman to talk to him seemed almost lost for words.

Gulping, Steve tried to shrink in on himself. He tried to play it off as just shyness. “Thank you,” he said, trying to be as polite as possible.

Somehow, this only seemed to make them laugh more. “Where did you pick up a polite young man like this, Bucky?” One of the unknown men asked.

It was awkward to listen to Bucky talk about how they met. Steve didn’t know why it felt strange, but it did, and he found himself not being able to talk much in the conversation either.

Bucky seemed happy enough for Steve to just sit and allow the conversation wash over him. Steve was happy enough with it too, surprisingly – despite his earlier jealousy, he didn’t have much that he could add to the conversation that was going on. It was something about the way they were planning on doing the exams this year, which Steve had heard Bucky talking about before, but it wasn’t like he had very many thoughts about it.

He exchanged a few words with a few of the other people. Generally they were a little curious about what Bucky was like when he was away from them – which was fair enough, and saved Steve from having to come up with more lies about his past. It was handy, in a way.

Steve found himself liking Bucky’s friends, despite this. Seeing Bucky be happy always made Steve feel better about any situation. Plus, having Bucky next to him and occasionally pressing kisses to his cheek made up for any of the feeling of being left out that he’d been feeling before.

A few times Bucky checked in on him, making sure that he was okay. Each time Steve said he was fine – and it wasn’t a lie. Somehow just being here, and soaking up that atmosphere made him feel good.

**

Steve woke to the feeling of being shaken.

Instinctively, he sat bolt upright, turning to grab whatever it was that had woken him up, unable to stop himself.

Bucky gasped. “Steve! Steve, it’s just me!”

With a start, Steve realised that his hands were wrapped around Bucky’s wrists, as he leaned over him.

He blinked.

A stone dropped into his gut, and as quickly as he could possibly move he rolled off of Bucky as far as he could go. “Oh god, I’m sorry,” he said, slumping back into the bed.

Bucky took a shaky breath. “It’s okay.”

Steve could see the way that Bucky was shaking, his hands trembling as he folded them over his chest. Tentatively, he placed his own hand on top of Bucky’s. It was painful to see the way that Bucky’s hand twitched as he touched it. “I’m sorry… I wish it was something that I could control.”

“I know.”

They hadn’t exactly talked very much about Steve’s past and why he sometimes reacted in strange ways. He’d insinuated as much as he could about having been in the army at some point, but he’d avoided going into any details. From the research he’d done, the wars in this time were complicated, and he wasn’t sure where he could believably insert himself into the situation.

Still – Bucky knew that there were reasons for why he reacted to some things like he did.

And, the best thing about Bucky was that he always did his best to make everything feel better after. Sitting up, and making a point to seem enthusiastic, he said, “anyway, what I woke you up for is that I figured out what we should do today!”

Steve blinked. “You have?”

“Yeah – we should go for a hike.” Bucky nodded frantically, grinning.

“We – we should?” Steve frowned, trying to process this suggestion.

Throwing the covers off of them, Bucky got out of bed, leaving Steve reeling by himself. “It’s such a nice day out!” Bucky said over his shoulder as he rummaged around in his closet. “I know that staying indoors is so much easier, but we should do something fun like that.” He paused, turned to face Steve properly. “You like the outdoors, right?”

Steve nodded wordlessly. That he hadn’t liked the outdoors until he got this body was sort of irrelevant – when he could go out without worrying that falling over would break his entire body.

They got ready quickly, Bucky hurrying them along. Bucky had more supplies for hiking than Steve did – but only some of it was at Steve’s apartment, and they ended up having to make do with the gym gear that Steve already had.

An hour later, they were well on their way out of the city. Bucky had decided that they should drive out, and had arranged for them to drive out. Apparently he could just borrow his roommate’s car easily, and Steve hadn’t wanted to question any of it.

They reached the wilderness soon after, and they left the car with the sun glaring overhead.

“Want some sunscreen?” Steve asked, holding out the bottle. He wouldn’t be risking much by getting sunburnt himself, but that didn’t mean that sunburn was comfortable either, and he’d already covered himself.

Bucky considered it for a moment. “Yeah, I probably should.” He took the bottle, and said, “help me put it on?”

Steve was only too happy to rub the sunscreen into his boyfriend’s skin. Most of the areas that he worked on would have easily been reached by Bucky himself – but the act of rubbing the sunscreen on was an intimate one, and an enjoyable one at that.

Perhaps in his mind there was more skin than Bucky actually had, but Bucky didn’t seem to be bothered by it if he went on for a bit longer than he should have done.

Setting off, they began to walk through the fields.

“Isn’t this nice?” Bucky asked airily.

Steve didn’t reply. He wasn’t sure whether Bucky would like his answer – especially since he seemed to be having a lot of fun.

For a while Bucky went about pointing out various things that he could see out and about. There were various birds (all of which he named, or attempted to name), and there were tree species that he knew as well.

Steve, the only outdoor experiences he’d had been in the war in Europe, knew very little of any of this. Somehow though, it didn’t bother him in the slightest that he was technically at a disadvantage here.

The sun was bright, and he was very glad for modern sunglasses that actually protected your eyes properly.

“So how often do you usually do this?” Steve said, breathing heavily.

Bucky looked back at him from his few paces ahead. “Not as often as I’d like,” he said. “You know how much time I have to spend marking, and thinking about my work outside of work hours. I don’t have much time I can allow myself to go out in.” He shrugged. “I’m missing out on time I could spend on thinking about exams to do this.”

“Should you not be back home then?” Steve asked, trying to catch up. “Isn’t doing this bad?”

Bucky caught his hand in his. “No,” he said cheerfully. “It’s worth it every time. And besides, this time I get to do it with you. That makes it completely worth it.”

Steve couldn’t have kept the cheesy grin off his face if he’d tried. Why was it so satisfying for them to go walking together? There had to be some sort of science behind it, but he didn’t know what it might be.

Most of their conversation they had was light. That was probably a good thing – otherwise how would they have managed to have a good look at all of the excellent wildlife around?

Bucky ended up asking him more about his childhood. It was a common thing – when Steve was so elusive about his past, he could hardly blame Bucky for trying to needle more information out of him. he did what he normally did – just took true stories from his past, and modernised them as best as he could. Sometimes it backfired, like when Bucky asked him when he’d had his first cd Walkman and he had completely blanked on what it was and what even a lie of a response would be.

Fortunately, it was pretty easy to turn the questions on their head and get information out of Bucky about his childhood, which to be fair, he was just as cagey about.

“…yeah, so basically my high school English teacher said that I was writing my essays at too high a level? And that was what kicked off the whole ‘skipping a grade thing’.”

“And your parents were fine with that then?” Steve asked.

Bucky nodded, hopping over a small hill. “Yeah. Back then it was a good thing.” He laughed drily. “And then they just changed their minds as soon as I began to actually do well at college.”

Steve realised pretty quickly that the conversation didn’t match the mood that he’d been going for, and moved quickly to try change the topic, find out something a little less depressing. That ended up being Bucky’s childhood, which from the sounds of it had mostly involved him and his sister playing on a farm.

By the time they wound back towards the car, Steve was ready to get home. He’d forgotten how much he actually hated being out in the heat and the mud, and it was nice to just sit in the car and relax as Bucky drove them home.

**

Time began to blur together, a mass of dates and laughter.

He ended up counting how long it had been by how many times he’d taken the trip to dc. Was it four? Or five? Actually, scratch that for how long they were together, every meeting was the same and he couldn’t keep track.

Aside from that, Steve didn’t’ know a time when he’d been so happy – not even during that short, bright period between becoming Captain America and dying. If he had thought that that time was freeing, then he couldn’t even have imagined the wonder of being able to entirely be himself with someone. Or of being open about things like attraction, and what he wanted to do with his life.

No, he couldn’t have asked for life to be going so well. With everything else looking up, it was easy enough to ignore everything else; annoyances like fury and shield fading into the background by comparison.

For once it was wonderful to have someone to truly confide in.

Someone to talk to when he felt down. Someone whom would support when he felt like he was doing nothing with his life – even if he didn’t know the full story.

Someone who understood him.


	6. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, here we get to the part that I actually like!

Steve looked across at Bucky, cocking his head to the side. His boyfriend was shirtless, in his bed – and looking absolutely adorable. The knowledge of his monthly meeting with Fury had been looming over his head for the past few days – having to leave Bucky with a lie once a month had really hit him hard the past few times. He didn’t like lying to his boyfriend – but the other option would be to tell him the truth. (okay, that lie wasn’t sitting well with him either, but he sort of liked not having to worry about living up to being cap with Bucky. His boyfriend had such a deep respect for the role that he didn’t think he’d ever be able to live up to that mantle.)

He knew he’d have to mention the trip to him soon – he didn’t want to catch him off guard, or anything.

Hesitantly, he opened his mouth to speak. “I – do you want to come with me to DC this month?”

Bucky looked up at him, surprise written all over his face. Steve was sure that he didn’t look much better – that definitely hadn’t been what he meant to say, not in the slightest.

“I –“ Bucky looked like he was attempting to process the question which was totally fair.

Somehow, despite not having meant to ask the question to begin with, Steve found himself getting nervous about the answer. He didn’t know whether he wanted Bucky to come, or not, or…

“Sure, I think I could make that work,” Bucky said, nodding to himself slowly. “Yeah – yeah, it could be fun.” His signature grin began to spread over his face, and Steve’s anxiety faded away.

“Right – yeah, it will.” A vacation together. The anxiety he’d felt melded into excited butterflies – having his boyfriend there could definitely make the trip much more enjoyable.

Over the next week, they made preparations for this unexpected vacation. It was surprisingly easy – really, it was only truly at this moment that Steve appreciated the internet. The hotel was bookable online, they could rent a car in advance, and they could look on google maps for free to see where they needed to go. In a very short amount of time, they had everything booked and ready to go.

Bucky didn’t shut up about the trip the entire time they were getting ready for it. It wasn’t a bad thing – Steve was glad to know that he’d done the right thing in telling Bucky about it – although he hadn’t been expecting for Bucky to start trying to talk about it in the middle of the night, which happened a few separate times.

In fact, that level of excitement lasted all the way up til the day they had to leave. Steve found himself infected with it – the usual anxiety about seeing Fury again this time waived and replaced with a kind of nervous anticipation. He knew that it was going to be much more enjoyable than his other trips there, no matter what.

Almost every moment had been planned out, mostly by Bucky. Steve didn’t mind that, not in the slightest, not when it would make their trip good. It was a great deal better than having his only plan be having to go see Fury.

**

Bucky stared out of the window for most of the journey down to DC. Steve had let him have the window seat, despite having also been interested in looking at the view outside – he just hadn’t been able to resist when Bucky had turned his big doe eyes on him, something that always made him do his boyfriend’s bidding.

“It looks so nice, doesn’t it,” Steve muttered. He didn’t know whether he was saying it to Bucky or to himself – but either way, Bucky turned to look at him and grinned in agreement. The fields flashed past them, the train sweeping them past the countryside almost faster than the eye could see.

Bucky turned back to the view, nose practically pressed up against the window. “I’m so jealous that you get to do this every month,” he said, envy thinly veiled in his voice.

Steve gulped. “Right. Yeah, it’s… it’s practically normal now.” Because he’d told Bucky this was how he got down to dc for his monthly work meetings. By train, every time.

As they pulled into another station, the level of noise as people gathered their things and stood up rose. Steve winced as a particularly loud screech from the wheel of a suitcase grated its way through his brain. If there was any advantage to taking a stupidly ostentatious plane to dc every month, it was that he at least got to sit in silence.

The people offloaded, and more piled in. Steve thought to himself that he wouldn’t have liked to get on at this point in the train’s journey – he could see how difficult it was for people to search for a seat.

Bucky seemed to be taking little notice of any of that, much more interested in looking outside still, his head moving as he took in the sights.

The train set off again, and Steve checked the time. They were only halfway through the total journey, it taking twice as long to get there as it did normally. He didn’t mind, though – not when his usual journeys had been filled with frustration at having to leave home for a few days. It was a price worth paying.

“Are you bored?” Bucky’s question caught him off guard.

Instinctively, Steve shook his head. “No, I’m fine,” he said. “…Why?”

Bucky shot him a knowing look. “I know you well enough to know when you’re bored,” he said, leaning down to reach inside his backpack. “You keep sighing, and I don’t even think you realize you’re doing it. Here,” he said, placing a book in Steve’s hand. “You can read this.”

It was a book Steve recognized, despite not having read it – it was one of Bucky’s many, many Captain America books. “Haven’t you already read this one?” Steve asked, turning it over in his hands. The copy wasn’t exactly new – Steve could see where the spine had been cracked open, where pages had been dog-eared. Then why had Bucky brought it with him?

Bucky’s cheeks went pink. “I just thought I’d brush up on my knowledge,” he mumbled, looking away again.

Steve smiled, amused. “You really think you would have forgotten everything you know in the time it takes us to get to the museum?” he asked.

Bucky turned back around to scowl at him. “No,” he snapped. Then he seemed to calm, realizing that Steve was teasing. “I just…. Wanted to make sure I wouldn’t miss anything.”

Steve leant over and pressed a kiss to the side of his head. “You think the smartest guy I know would forget a single thing about the subject he’s obsessed with? Because I doubt it.”

A shrug. “Maybe.”

Steve kissed him again, on the cheek this time. “You won’t, and you’re going to have a great time.” He moved back to sit in his heat properly. “Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to read my book.”

Opening the book to a random page, he began to read. Bucky simply laughed – and Steve did find himself doing his best to focus on the book. It was something to do, if nothing else, and he thought that perhaps he was the one that could be doing with a refresher on the other Captains. Even with everything that Bucky had told him about them, there was still plenty he didn’t know, still something new to learn with every new book he read.

At least this book was one about the Captain before the one who held the title now. Context was often everything when it came to these books, and so much of it Steve was missing. But when dealing with more modern matters, with things that he recognized, that he’d heard people talking about... well, then it was easier to follow, to understand why certain decisions had been made. Even if he thought they were stupid decisions.

Even while he was trying to read, Steve could feel Bucky’s excitement increase the closer they got to dc. It was almost infectious – except that Steve’s excitement was tinged with worry, with nerves about what was going to happen once things got real. It was so easy to just think of this as a holiday for the two of them – especially with how often Bucky had brought up how much he wanted to see the Captain America trip – but he couldn’t escape the fact that he did still have to go see Fury, have to deal with all of that. It wasn’t exactly an enticing idea.

He could only hope that his own excitement would grow to match Bucky’s eventually.

**

“You can go sit down while I check us in, if you like.”

Bucky looked relieved. “Yeah, okay, I’ll just… I’ll take the suitcases with me.” He dragged them over to the couches, and Steve turned to the counter.

Checking them in didn’t take very long. The receptionist seemed to be charmed by him – at least, that was what Steve was pretty sure that that was what was going on. Her cheeks remained red the entire time, and she kept flicking her hair over her shoulder. As she passed him his key cards, it seemed like she made an effort to touch his hand, to make contact. It wasn’t that he was trying to instigate something like this – but he was still so unused to behavior like this being directed at him, to the extent that he didn’t know what to do with it.

His solution was to remain professional, thanking her as he turned to where Bucky was sat on a couch. His boyfriend was on his phone, slouched over like a true millennial. Despite being an important college professor, whenever he was outside of that professional environment, Bucky was really very good at seeming as relaxed as he liked.

“Hey, we’re all good,” Steve said when he got closer.

Bucky looked up from his phone – and Steve thought that he seemed a little off. What could possibly have happened in the ten minutes it took him to check them in?

“Cool,” Bucky said, slipping his phone into his pocket as he stood up.

Then – Bucky slipped his hand into Steve’s back pocket. Casually, as if it was something they did often, like they weren’t in front of the hotel staff and several other guests. “What room are we in again?”

Steve coughed, wondering whether he should remove Bucky’s hand, or whether there was something more going on here. “Uh…” He should have known, having seen it only moments before, yet the number was entirely gone from his mind. Pulling out the key cards again, he checked the card wrapping around the cards. “Room… 506.”

Bucky nodded. “Okay.”

Together they took hold of their luggage, making their way past the reception counter on their way to the elevators. As they did, Bucky leaned over to kiss Steve on the cheek, completely out of nowhere. Steve wasn’t exactly complaining, but neither did he know why it seemed to be part of Bucky’s acting oddly – until he noticed the fact that his eyes were fixed on the flirty receptionist the entire time.

Oh.

That was so cute. Bucky was _jealous_. As though he had ever been attracted to a woman in his life.

Choosing to say nothing about it (at least for now), Steve thought that it would be weird to bring it up while they were still in the same room as her.

Things seemed to go back to normal once they were out sight of Bucky’s competition. “Are you excited, baby?” Steve asked, as they waited in the elevator.

“Don’t you think that’s a silly question?” Bucky laughed. “I’ve been talking about this ever since you brought it up, and you’re really not sure whether I’m excited for all this?”

Steve shrugged. “I don’t know, you might have changed your mind.”

As the elevator dropped them off at their floor, Steve took it on himself to take both the suitcases, despite Bucky’s complaints that he was capable of doing it himself. “Why do you insist on doing this, Steve?” He huffed, trying to snatch the handle of his suitcase away from Steve.

Laughing, Steve twisted away. “Just let me do this nice thing for you, babe,” he said, walking on ahead. Even if he couldn’t tell Bucky the reason that he thought he should be the one taking the suitcases, he knew that they were both heavy. At least, in theory they were both heavy. It was so much easier for Steve to take them that it seemed like a no-brainer for him to be the one to lug them around.

Bucky grumbled the whole way to the hotel room – with a lot of uses of the word jerk. It almost made Steve feel like he was eavesdropping – he clearly wasn’t meant to be hearing any of it, since it was muttered under Bucky’s breath, but it was sort of difficult when it was right behind him. It didn’t bother Steve too much though – it didn’t sound like anything too serious.

It didn’t take long to get to their room, even if it felt like the corridor went on forever. Steve let them in, half-curious to see what a 21st century hotel room would look like.

It…. Looked like a hotel room. He didn’t know why that surprised him so much, that he wasn’t surprised by its appearance.

Bucky pushed past him, giving him a weird look as he went. Right, he was meant to be from this time. He was meant to have been to a hotel before in his life. He shouldn’t have been caught short by a mere hotel room.

Pulling the suitcases further into the room, and letting the door close behind him, Steve looked around. Everything looked very clean – always a good sign. If he’d been able to afford to go to a hotel room as nice as this when he was growing up… well, it would have cost about as much as he made in a whole year for something that wasn’t at the very least infested with cockroaches. He’d gone for a medium tier room, nothing too cheap but nothing too expensive either. He’d been able to expense it to shield – but Bucky couldn’t exactly know that, so he had to make it reasonable that he could afford it himself.

Bucky had flopped down onto the bed, the implication very much that he was tired from a hard day’s travelling. Steve could understand that – he had supersoldier stamina, and yet somehow even he was mentally exhausted from dealing with being around so many people for so long.

With a groan, he abandoned the luggage where it was, and went to join Bucky on the bed. Neither of them said anything – they didn’t need to.

Even when fully dressed, there was something about being in bed with Bucky that made him sleepy. His eyes were closed, the bed was soft, he was warm…

_buzz_

One of their phones buzzed, jerking Steve out of his sleep. Beside him, Bucky groaned, moving to get his phone out of his pocket. Assuming that this meant that it had been Bucky’s phone, Steve relaxed again, knowing that if it was something important, Bucky would tell him about it.

After what felt like a minute (but really could have been any amount of time), Steve cracked an eye open. It didn’t feel like Bucky had moved at all since he looked at his phone, which was odd. Although his face was smooshed against the bed (he hadn’t even got so far as putting his head on a pillow) he managed to shuffle so that he could see Bucky. It was somewhat difficult, since Bucky was lying on his back, but from what Steve could see, it looked like Bucky was… blushing?

“What’s up?” Steve said sleepily, voice breathless.

Bucky didn’t say anything for a minute. Then, “Oh, it was just Becca texting me. It’s nothing.” The tone of his voice made it very clear that it wasn’t ‘nothing’.

Drawing on all the strength he had, Steve ignored the part of his brain that was screaming for him to just go back to sleep, and sat up. “What did she actually say?” he asked, knowing that it had to be something extra weird for it to make Bucky so blushy.

“Just…” Bucky’s blush deepened. “I mean, she told us to have fun?”

Steve raised an eyebrow. Did Bucky think he’d been born yesterday to believe that such a simple sentiment would cause such a reaction?

Bucky groaned, covering his face with his hands. “I’ve probably made it seem way worse than it is,” he said, his voice muffled. “Just –“

Without even looking, Bucky picked up his phone from where it had lain on his chest, and offered it up to Steve. It was unlocked, showing his messages with his sister.

Me  
just got to the hotel! It’s really nice, Steve really outdid himself

Becca  
okay, have fun you guys! But not too much fun ;)

It took Steve a second to realize why this would be such a big deal.

“I know it shouldn’t have made me like this,” Bucky spoke again, one hand still over his eyes and reddened cheeks, “but I know you said you were waiting for us to do more, and I want to respect that and for you not to think that I made her think – that I’ve been saying anything about us doing… that, you know?”

Steve’s own cheeks began to heat up. “Yeah, I – I didn’t think that, don’t worry. It’s fine.”

It shouldn’t be this awkward for them to talk about this, but oh well. This is just what they were like, for now, and Steve had accepted that.

Giving Bucky his phone back, Steve sat back against the headboard, no longer sleepy.

They sat like that together for a while longer. Bucky spent a while texting his sister back, and Steve didn’t feel like he wanted to intrude on that.

Somehow journeying had taken them all day, and it was dark out already. Slowly but surely, sleepiness overtook him again. They had a lot to do the next day, and it wasn’t long before Steve found himself suggesting that they go to sleep. Bucky wasn’t complaining either – Steve had seen how much he was yawning.

They both got ready for bed as quickly as possible. It felt really domestic – one of the things that he loved the most about spending time like this with Bucky. As they snuggled up in bed, Steve ending up being spooned by Bucky, Steve figured that he’d save worrying about tomorrow for tomorrow.

**

Steve gripped Bucky’s hand harder.

What had he been on when he’d thought that this would be a good idea? When he agreed that this would be a great place to come on their trip?

Oh, right, it had been when Bucky had been listing all the places he wanted to come on this trip and had categorically announced that he _needed_ to see the Smithsonian exhibition on the Captain Americas. And Bucky had looked up at him with those big eyes, and he’d forgotten all his reservations about the place.

Well, they had all come flooding back the moment that he found himself buying tickets to get into the museum. Bucky was practically vibrating next to him – pretty much exactly as he had expected.

“Do you think they’ll have _all_ of the original suits?” Bucky whispered beside him. “I know that replicas have been made over the years, but I really want them to be the originals – it would help so much for my next book if I could just see the originals…”

Steve snorted. “You know that this information is probably all on their website, right?” He whispered back. “You could look it up right now.”

Bucky pushed him lightly. “But that’s no fun,” he whined. “If I look it up, then what’s the point in coming here in person?”

Steve shrugged. “Just to annoy me?”

Giggling, Bucky slapped him lightly. “Shut up,” he said, “you know you love my obsession.”

Rolling his eyes as dramatically as possible, he said, “yes, dear.”

This seemed to placate Bucky – for now, at least.

He was quiet as the actual tickets were bought (Steve’s treat, even though it felt like extortion as he handed over his money). The moment that they left the ticket booth and out of the main hall, though? That was when the full force of his excitement came out to play again.

“I hope they have some original weapons too,” Bucky mused, “although I heard that they were on tour not long ago, so I don’t know if they’ll have them here today. If not though, I hope they at least have the letters that Charles wrote to his love while he was on tour, because they’re real tear-jerkers.”

“Right…” Steve almost felt bad that he didn’t know the exact things that Bucky was talking about. He couldn’t join in the conversation, not really… although perhaps by the end of today he’d be able to.

Steve couldn’t help but be amused by the fact that, even faced with all the other information that this huge museum held, Bucky only had eyes for the Captain America exhibit.

Plucking out one of the the maps of the museum, he unfolded it, trying to get a good grasp of where they were right now. Bucky leant into his side, eyes transfixed. “There!” he exclaimed, jabbing a finger at the paper. “That’s where we’re headed!”

Steve barely had time to see where it was himself before Bucky had folded the map back up, putting it in his pocket. “You know we have like, six hours before the museum closes, right?” Steve reminded him. It was mostly a joke – but he’d be lying if he said there wasn’t a part of him that expected to be in that one exhibit all day. Not that he’d really be complaining if they were.

“Shush,” Bucky said, leading them out of the building. “We still need to make the best of all our time here. There’s no point in wasting any time.” His logic couldn’t be fought with, to be fair.

Steve suspected that if Bucky had been here by himself, he would have been running across the park towards the Air and Space museum to get there sooner. As it was, they simply power walked – and Steve thought to himself that it clearly didn’t matter too much that he wasn’t getting in his morning run today.

It looked like there were other things going on in that building; there were posters advertising them outside it – but Steve knew that the chances of actually getting to see any of them were slim to none.

As they entered the building, the air became thick with Bucky’s excitement.

‘The hall of Captain America!’

The sign was huge, obnoxious, the exact opposite of what Steve would have wanted to have associated with him. It was done in the style of the signage that had followed him around on the uso tours, the kinds of advertisements they’d used to get him to look good. Underneath the writing there was even a drawing that he thought he recognized, one of a man holding a shield (probably supposed to be him, but it didn’t hold much resemblance) punching out Hitler.

“Come on!” Bucky didn’t seem to be paying much attention to any of that, seeming much more interested in actually going in. He tugged at Steve’s hand – and Steve went willingly with him. It wasn’t like he was particularly jazzed at the idea of sticking around and feeling more and more embarrassed at all the fanfare.

The first thing they saw was a sign detailing what the role of Captain America meant.

_Since its inception, the mantle of Captain America has been passed only to those who represent truth, justice and freedom. The brave men who chose to take up this dangerous task have, throughout history, been the most revered throughout all the world. For the past seventy years, they have kept America, and the world, safe._

Steve had to hold back a snort. Sure, he agreed with some of what this sign said. But other parts of it? It felt a little too much like they were trying to convince themselves that this was what Captain America was, rather than the people reading it.

Bucky bounced on the balls of his feet. Clearly impatient, Steve knew that something so introductory must be an affront to him, to know that he knew so much more than such a simple description. “You can go on without me, you know,” he said to Bucky, thinking that perhaps this would be the best way for them to experience this museum.

Shaking his head, Bucky said, “no, I want to do this with you, Steve.” Then he looked up at Steve properly (it felt almost like the first time Bucky had properly brought his attention away from the exhibit all day). “Unless you’d rather I didn’t? I know you get annoyed with how much I love this stuff sometimes.”

Steve was quick to shake his head. “No, that’s not it,” he said, squeezing Bucky’s hand tightly. “No, I just thought that you might want to get on and go see the things that you’re excited about. I mean, you know – you know more about all of this than me.” Another sort-of lie. Overall Bucky would know more about all the other captains than he did. There was only so much that he could absorb in a few months compared to years of intense study.

Their conversation paused as they shuffled towards one another to let a few people pass by them into the exhibit.

Bucky took the opportunity to lean into Steve’s chest, looking up into his eyes. Steve felt his heart melt. “I wanted to do this with you,” Bucky said firmly. “I won’t be able to enjoy it as much without you. Why would I want to spend this time without you?”

Feeling foolish, Steve shrugged. “I don’t know, I just thought that perhaps you would find it easier without me hanging around.”

“Nonsense.” Bucky’s voice allowed for no disagreement. “We’re doing this together.”

Steve couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. Okay.”

This time, when Bucky led them round the corner to the rest of the exhibit, Steve did it fully willingly, completely excited for what they were about to see.

He stopped short. He hoped that Bucky didn’t notice his sudden intake of breath, or the slight twitch of his hand at the sight of the newest display.

There was his face, blown up to ten times the size, on the wall. Well, it was his face about three years younger – he could see how much younger he looked in this picture – but definitely still recognizable.

Oh god. This could be the end, the end of everything.

Looking nervously at Bucky, Steve gulped. He didn’t dare say anything, for fear of what might come out of his mouth. He had such mixed views on what he was seeing that he wasn’t sure what he’d say, if pressed.

There were uniforms of his, several of them, as well as a whole host of boards with information about his life. It was strange, that anyone would be so interested in learning about him – but he did think it interesting that most of what he could see was from after he received the serum. It hadn’t escaped his notice that in all the (very little) information he had seen about him passed around, most of it was based on his life as Captain America.

Then Steve noticed where Bucky’s gaze was actually fixed. Since the display on him was so small, the exhibit on the second Captain was visible at the end of the corridor. Bucky was practically vibrating at the idea of seeing it – it was plain on his face.

“You don’t have to hold back for my sake, you know,” Steve said, amused.

Bucky shot him a ‘really?’ look. “I literally just said that I wanted to go round this with you. What would make you think I’d change my mind two seconds later?”

“Well I know your passion lies with… uuuh… whatshisname,” Steve said, blanking on the right name.

Bucky rolled his eyes. **“** Ronnie. You know it as well as a I do, Stevie.”

Steve shrugged, trying to be casual about it. His eye wandered back to all the pictures of him. Thankfully, most of them that were there were in terrible quality – enough that Steve wasn’t too worried that so long as he didn’t bring attention to it, he could get away with it.

Bucky seemed to notice where his gaze was, and he turned around accordingly. “Oh – are you wanting to look at that guy?”

“I – I don’t know,” Steve stammered out.

Oh god, did he want Bucky to know the truth. To know his past, and not the version of it that he’d had to edit for Bucky.

But he couldn’t, not when it would jeopardize everything he’d built in this time. Since Fury had specifically asked him to stay quiet about it, who knew what would happen if he tried to actually spread word about it.

Taking his hand, Bucky pulled him over to the exhibit. “We should look at it,” he said. “I mean, it can’t hurt to study it. Especially since you never learned about it in school.” He gave Steve that judgmental look that he always had whenever they brought that up.

Steve rolled his eyes playing along. “I still don’t know how you remember that,” he said, “I brought it up once on our first date, and you haven’t let it go since.”

“Too right!” Bucky exclaimed. “Of course I haven’t let it go – I still don’t know what school in New York wouldn’t teach you about that.”

“Sssssh,” Steve said, laughing. “Time to read.”

_‘…right from the beginning, Steve Rogers was…’_

Somehow reading his own name on there made Steve feel uncomfortable, like he was reading about someone else’s accomplishments.

Bucky was focused on the writing, the mini biography that they had about him. Steve had already skim read it, and discovered that it was…. Not incorrect, but still leaving out plenty at the same time. If Steve had been consulted about any of this…

Well, to be fair he’d been asleep at the time all of this had been set up. He couldn’t blame them entirely.

But that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it.

“Hey, did you know this?” Bucky asked, jabbing at a point in the text and drawing Steve’s attention.

_Steve was good at school as a child, but was forced to drop out due to family illness._

“I – I didn’t know that, no,” Steve said. It didn’t seem like the sort of thing that modern-him would have known, not when he’d made it clear how little he knew about… himself.

As they looked at the exhibit more, they lapsed into silence. There was so much to look at – so much information about the howling commandos and the things they did. In fact, that seemed to be the overwhelming theme of the whole thing – aside from the main board concerning how he came to be how he was, there was only a small subsection about his life before being Captain America.

Ignoring that for now, to save it for later, he stepped along to look at the first things they had about being Captain America.

There was his shield.

He placed his fingers on the glass over it. Remembering the feeling of its cool metal under his fingers, he resisted the temptation for him to just break the glass and take it back. Everything else he could just about deal with being in here. But this?

It was _his._

He had thought that they didn’t have his things, or that they had been in the care of someone else. Not that they’d created a whole museum piece about it, and his belongings.

Right next to it was his first suit, the one that had been a show piece. It had been uncomfortable, but looked good while on – or in this case, on a mannequin. It was the way he knew that it was his show costume, and not the one he’d had made later that actually protected him. They’d been made in the same style, so as to not throw off all the viewers of the films they made once he started running actual missions. That one seemed to be missing from this display – which was strange as the placard next to it made it sound like they were the same suit. That was such a ridiculous idea – as if the thin show thing would have lasted ten minutes on the battlefield.

Honestly in some ways it felt worse to have those things on display than all the other personal items on display. There weren’t exactly a lot of them – most of them were utilitarian in purpose. Why people would want to gawp at his hairbrush Steve didn’t know, but at least the people around them seemed vaguely interested.

Looking up from the assortment of his things (which, admittedly it was strange seeing them looking so much older than when he last saw them), Steve saw that Bucky was a little further down the exhibit than he was. To be fair, he’d not gotten so distracted by the shield as he had.

Taking one last longing glance at his things, he shuffled along to where Bucky was looking intently at something.

Three sketchbooks, of varying sizes. The drawings on them were faded, the pages yellowed, but they were still very clear.

Well, that was embarrassing. Steve had never meant for any of these to be made public – they were for his mother, first of all, but also for himself. He took a step back, not wanting to look at them and see all the flaws he still knew were there.

Bucky looked up at him. “Do you not like these?” he looked surprised.

“I – no, that’s not it, they just… they remind me of the art I used to do when I was younger. I miss it.” He smiled wistfully.

That seemed to fully get Bucky’s attention. “You used to draw? I didn’t know that!”

Steve looked down at his feet, bashful all of a sudden. “Ah… it wasn’t that good, but yeah, I used to dabble in it. It’s – it’s no big deal.”

Bucky gave him one of those looks that always seemed to see right through him. “If it’s a big deal to you, Stevie, then it’s a big deal to me.”

Steve couldn’t stop the rush of blood he knew had gone right to his face. Much as he wished to be able to stop the reaction, he couldn’t – and so he turned to face the glass in, again taking in his old drawings.

It was the smallest one of all that he could barely stand to look at. The other two were fine – not his best work, but still acceptable. A view of central park, colored in the only way he had known back then, and a street view, with cars and people in full view. Even with no particular attachment to these drawings, he could see why they had been chosen.

But the smallest notebook had been the one that he never, ever intended for anyone else to see. Everyone that he had known at the time, whoever took in all his stuff after he… disappeared, would have known that. Then how come there was the last drawing he had done of his mother, out in full view of everyone? It had been done right before she died, when she was still well enough to not have gone to the hospital, but ill enough to look it, even in the generous coloring he’d given her.

He wished, even more than he had with his shield, that he could just reach in and take it back, away from prying eyes and those who didn’t see how special it was to him.

Much as he wanted to spend the whole day just looking at his own things, he knew he couldn’t. There were other people in the museum, and as strange as it was to think, they deserved to get to look at his stuff too.

Steve decided, on the whole, that he liked the section on himself. There was a decent amount written, they seemed to have covered all the main things.

Still – it was nice and all, but this was, of course, in direct contradiction to the other captains, who had countless amounts written about their entire lives.

Even though it had seemed like Bucky had been pretty pumped to read the section on him, he couldn’t even kid himself that the levels of enthusiasm were anywhere near the same.

“Oh god, look at this!” Bucky cried at the very first item they saw. “The very first suit they made for Ronnie. You know they tried to get it as close to the first once as they could, but they didn’t want to step on the toes of the last guy, so that’s why they added all these stars. Don’t you think they look silly?”

Steve had to admit, the stars of varying sizes did seem a bit over the top, dotted all over the uniform and standing out against the blue. “Yeah, I guess it is kinda dumb. Maybe they should have stuck to the original design.”

Bucky shrugged. “I dunno, there’s definitely a special place in my heart for it and its stupidity.”

There were a lot of other objects that got a similar treatment to this by Bucky. Steve was treated to a run down on this man’s pipe, slippers, diary, rifle and his favorite teddy. There were a lot more things – and, even to Steve’s eyes, it was clear that the man had grown up much more affluent than he had.

His shield was there too. It sat next to the costume, like they were a pair. Like the suit, the design was mostly the same, but subtly different, the colors off and the sizing all wrong.

But when he saw the way that Bucky’s eyes widened as they turned the corner into the next captain’s exhibit, Steve realized that he had been wrong. Utterly and completely wrong.

Instead of coming across as mania, this time Bucky’s interest manifested itself as utter awe.

His eyes opened wide, his hands reverently fanning over the glass.

In looking at the objects laying beyond the glass, the immediate difference was clear, even to Steve, in the quantity and quality of the artefacts that lay there.

Pictures, several of them, were on the wall, providing the most color that had been in any of any of the exhibits so far. He thought he recognized some of them – and he certainly recognized the man in them. He was the one who Bucky loved the most, who Steve had seen the most often in all the times he’d seen something relating to Captain America.

There was another plaque on the wall, one which Steve knew, even as he looked at it, that he wouldn’t need to read it. He knew the story of this man already.

_Charles Cooper was Captain America from 1979 until 2001, and was incredibly popular for the entire time. His legions of fangirls catapulted him to fame, making the role a perfect fit for him. He hailed from the world of film, and…_

He was surprised, as he read the paragraphs himself, to find that he already knew most of it. It shouldn’t have been surprising – he’d spent the past few months having various details filtering into his mind – yet somehow he had missed that until this point.

“Can you believe it…” Bucky murmured. He stroked his fingers down the glass, over where there were a collection of polaroid photographs, ones which had clearly been taken by the man himself. Some of them were yellowed, clearly still old by the standards of today’s time, but not nearly as old as Steve’s belongings. There were three that appeared to have been taken in the middle of a battle – one with a whole army of men. Two that were just of him, relaxing, the equivalent of a selfie.

“He looks brave,” Steve said.

Bucky snorted. “Yeah, they do look good, don’t they? They were all staged though.”

Steve started. “Really? They look…” He looked back at them, realizing that he couldn’t tell whether they looked real or not. Blurred enough to get rid of details, it was unclear whether the armies had been in motion as the picture was taken.

“Yeah, they look decent, but they’re all faked.” He shook his head. “I mean, they’re recreations of a real battle. But they would never have been able to take real pictures during the real battle. You’d think they’d never be able to make people believe that they were real, but they really worked.”

There was nothing in the writing next to them about any of this, but Steve believed Bucky about it more than anyone.

The situation repeated itself again. Bucky was excited about pretty much every item in the exhibit. The letters that he had wanted so much to see were there – although not many of them were actually set out in a way to be read.

Steve’s favorite part was the fact that they had the suit for this Captain, too. This one Steve knew very well – it was the one with the bell bottoms, the one he’d first seen when Bucky recommended a book on him.

It was clear that the polaroids were the only pictures which weren’t big, media ones. There were a lot of professionally taken ones of Captain America with the troops – but it wasn’t clear whether he had ever fought with them. There were many more promotional ones, as well as videos which could barely even convince Steve that this man was worth following. His posture was almost nonexistent, and his shield was held limply by his side, with no sign that he had ever used it to fight.

This definitely wasn’t the kind of person that Steve would have chosen to be his successor. If he’d been at least consulted about it… well, he didn’t know who he would have chosen, but having someone who at least had some modicum of the ability to fight would be desirable.

He had to admit though, it was still good that there had at least been someone to protect people out there. That had to be nothing but a good thing, right?

That was what he tried to tell himself, at least.

As they moved onto the next Captain, the last one, there was a distinct change in the things they had in the exhibit. Instead of his actual suit, they had a replica of it, and in place of personal items, there were a lot of pictures and videos of the things that he had done.

Admittedly, there were a lot of them – perhaps Steve hadn’t given the man enough credit for actually doing good in the world.

There was even a section of these photographs dedicated to the Avengers, despite the fact that the Avengers had only been a thing for a couple of years now.

For the few physical items they had, Bucky took several meticulous pictures of them, probably using up all of his phone storage.

While Bucky busied himself with that, Steve started to read the information they had on this guy.

_Eric Moore has been Captain America since 2001, and has breathed new life into the role. His bravery has been…_

Nope. For some reason it was much more difficult to read about this one. Probably because he was the one who was literally stealing the role from Steve currently, but also because Steve had never liked the look of him.

There was also a copy of Eric’s diary, Steve noticed. That was an unusual thing for someone who was still alive to allow into a museum. Wandering over, Steve read the page it was flipped open to. Unsurprisingly, it was about him being chosen as Captain America. ‘I can’t believe they chose me!’ It said. ‘I hope I can live up to the wonderful standards of those who came before me.’

Right, so it was entirely fake then. Steve tried not to snort – Bucky had started taking pictures of it, and he was treating it like it was completely real.

What wonderful, genuine artifacts to have in a museum. Steve had to do his best not to shake his head at his fake it all was.

At the end of the day, Steve wasn’t even sure that he was ready to leave. Sure, the museum was closing, and Bucky was complaining that he hadn’t gotten pictures of everything that he wanted to, but even he thought that it seemed like they hadn’t spent enough time in there.

Seeing all of their stuff really made it real for Steve that they really had taken over his job. Like, before that it had been easy to ignore, to pretend like it was all just fictional.

“So, you’re glad you came with me?”

Bucky squeezed his hand. “You betcha! Man, I can’t even imagine not having come now. I’ve seen so many pictures of all those things, but they’re so much greater in person. I mean, I would have liked it if they’d had a few more things from Eric, but then I guess he doesn’t want to give much of his stuff to it just yet.”

Steve nodded. “Yeah, I guess that would have been nice. But I sort of preferred the older stuff. Don’t you think it’s fascinating that they have so much of it?”

Bucky tilted his head. “Yeah, I suppose it is. I’ve always liked museums for that reason… I know I spent much more time with the more recent things today, but you know that was for a different reason, right?”

Steve nodded. He knew that this obsession overrode any other interests – it literally was something personal.

Leaning over the center console, Bucky captured his lips in a soft kiss. Just for a moment. Just enough to remind Steve that had put up with all of the potential embarrassment and jealousy for Bucky.

The drive back to their hotel was quiet. They had spent so much of the day talking, and looking at things, and both of them were a little worn out. While Steve drove, Bucky got his phone out to entertain himself.

It was normal for his boyfriend to have his phone out a lot. Steve had noticed that very early on in their relationship. Still – it was a little excessive, the way that he couldn’t take his eyes off it the whole journey back. Steve couldn’t exactly take his eyes off the road for long in order to tell what he was looking at – but he could make a pretty good guess.

Cogs in Bucky’s head were practically already turning, Steve could tell – he knew that there was every chance that the beginnings of his next research paper would be hidden in the photos he took earlier. It was sort of cute, the way that all of Bucky’s thoughts were focused on that.

By the time they reached the hotel, Steve’s thoughts had been filled with the fact that tomorrow was going to be much less fun. He knew now what he would need to do, at least in part.

And he wasn’t looking forward to it.

**

As Steve walked into the triskelion, he wondered what he was doing here.

Like, actually, for once. He usually had thoughts like this around this place – it was like its aura conjured them or something – but as of late those thoughts had been getting stronger. Seeing the display to the other captains had only made those thoughts stronger, really. The smallness of the part dedicated to him, the strange, cult-like way everyone there seemed to worship the current avengers? None of it made him want to be a part of this place.

It was busier than usual in here, he realized as he walked over to the elevators. There was a usual, base-line amount of employees that he knew worked here and would be around during the day, but this was a little excessive, surely?

Pulling his baseball cap further down his head, he tried to look around, to figure out what was going on. He couldn’t see any particular epicenter of activity, and when the elevator arrived he took it anyway. (The lobby received one final suspicious glare though. He hadn’t liked that.)

The second thing that tipped him off that there was something strange afoot was that nobody got in the elevator with him. Not that people refused to get in because he was there, but the elevator didn’t even stop, sending him straight to the level Fury’s office was on. That had _never_ happened before, not in all the times he’d come here.

As he got higher, he got more nervous. There was going to be something waiting for him up there, he just knew it. They’d never make any of this happen just because he was here – it had to be the work of someone else.

The elevator slowed to a halt. Steve clenched his fists. the door opened…

A familiar blue suit was the first thing he saw. A star, sitting proudly in the middle.

The person wearing it, though? They were less familiar.

Sure, Steve thought that he recognized him. He’d had Bucky wave his picture in his face often enough – it was the current Captain America, the man who had his job. But Steve didn’t recognize a single thing about his demeanor.

There were four guards surrounding him, Steve noticed, two on each side. Had he ever needed guarding? He tried to remember. Perhaps during the uso days, but certainly not since then. What would be the point in a Captain America who couldn’t defend themselves?

This man, Eric, had been looking at his phone when Steve arrived. Actually, he kept looking at his phone the entire time, as though he was completely reliant on the bodyguards to protect him.

Trying not to let any of his emotions show, Steve stepped forward to leave the elevator.

He was brought to an unexpected halt when two of the bodyguards stepped forward, blocking his path.

“You need to go around,” one of them growled at him. They began to shuffle Eric to the side, as though they were expecting Steve to attack at any moment.

This seemed to get the imposter’s attention – he finally put down his phone, noticing Steve for the first time. He seemed to size Steve up – and while that was okay, he wasn’t sure he liked the man’s look while he did it.

“Do I know you?” the man began to look confused, stopping in his tracks where he was on the way to getting into the elevator. “ You look… familiar.”

Steve had paused his own walking. How should he respond to that? If he didn’t know who he was, then it was very likely that it would be a bad plan to let everyone here know who he was.

He coughed. “Oh – I’m nobody.” Smiling through the pain of having to say that, he tried to come off as non-threatening as possible. “I’m just – on my way to work.” It wasn’t technically a lie.

Eric shook his head. “No, I’m sure I recognize you from somewhere.” He sucked at his teeth in thought. “I just can’t place you though. You said you work here?” His expression was all openness. Steve could almost see why he’d been chosen to fill the role… but for one thing.

The eyes.

It had always been in the eyes, any time he met someone. In his experience, the eyes never lied. When he’d met Bucky, his eyes had spoken nothing but honesty and enthusiasm. This man though? Something in his eyes wasn’t right; a certain harshness which didn’t fit with the rest of him.

Perhaps it could be put down to the hard work that came with having their job. After all, it was hardly easy to be a fighter, as well as being in the spotlight constantly. Yes, maybe that was all it was.

It wasn’t like he didn’t have an ulterior motive to not like the guy.

“I do, but I don’t think we’ve had the pleasure of meeting before.” Steve chose that as his response. He still didn’t know whether he should take the risk of telling him – even if he was wrong, it still probably wouldn’t be the best way to introduce himself to the man. Besides, he was clearly on his way somewhere, and it wouldn’t be good to interrupt whatever they were meant to be getting up to. Yes, that was a good enough reason.

His reason for not taking the time to go into everything was only backed up when one of the bodyguards put a finger to his ear, and quietly said, “yes, we’re just running a few minutes late. The Captain wanted to speak to someone.”

It was clear they had somewhere to be – if nothing else the fact that the elevator had remained where it was, instead of being called somewhere else just went to show that they had priority over it right now.

“Well it was nice talking to you anyway,” Eric said. He flashed Steve a half-smile – one which Steve recognized from press tours, which Bucky had forced him to sit through (what felt like) hundreds of hours of footage of. It was definitely a fake smile. Was that indicative of something? Theories ran through Steve’s mind, each one wilder than the last, about this man knowing who he was and… and planning something… or…

No, it was probably just because he was busy and didn’t need to take the time to genuinely like Steve when he didn’t know who he was. Steve berated himself for indulging himself in such fantasies. Bucky would have been the one to pick up on something if there really was something there; he knew all the modern captains much better than he did.

Steve watched as Eric and his bodyguards stepped into the elevator, framed by the sunlight streaming through the glass walls. It made for a pretty picture – if Steve had had his pencils around, perhaps it would have made for an interesting thing to draw.

There was no more contact from Eric – even as Steve watched the doors close, the man had pulled out his phone again, immediately back on it and paying no attention to his surroundings.

(Steve couldn’t help but notice the way that the moment he thought he wasn’t being watched, the friendly expression dropped right off his face. He’d heard of ‘resting bitch face’ being a thing – Bucky had accused him of having it enough times – but there seemed to be more to it than that. He certainly didn’t look happy, or anything approximating it. His face had turned sharp, focused, like there was something incredibly important going on that he needed to pay the utmost attention to. Perhaps there was, given his location, but if that was true then why did he take the time to talk to Steve?)

Deciding to put his worries to the back of his mind, he continued on his way. He found himself glad that he’d decided to get here a little early – despite Fury’s habit of being late to meetings, he dreaded the day he was late and something bad came of it. At least this way he’d just be on time.

Despite knowing that he needed to hurry, he couldn’t resist the urge to check his own phone. Sure, Bucky knew that he was at work, but he just couldn’t help himself…

Buckster  
Hope you’re having a great day!

Buckster  
[picture attached]

Buckster  
I know you’d be so bored by all this, but I can’t help but wish you were with me….

The picture was of him stood by Charles’ exhibit, one they’d already seen the previous day. It was honestly adorable, and if Steve hadn’t been in public he probably wouldn’t have hesitated to coo at it.

He swallowed heavily. Putting his phone back into his pocket without saying anything else would be the right thing to do (not wanting to make Bucky feel like he should send more messages was definitely his reasoning here, not the knowledge that he wouldn’t be able to resist continuing to message him. Definitely not)… but he couldn’t resist sending one message. Just one.

Me  
Don’t have too much fun without me baby!

He sent it, feeling much better.

Taking another deep breath, he put his phone away like he knew he should. He was definitely going to be late, for sure…. For a concept which had scared him just a few weeks before, it was shocking just how little he found himself caring about it right now.

Marching down the corridor, he felt a newfound confident flow through him, knowing that he held more cards here than shield and Fury wanted to give him credit for.

It didn’t take him long to reach Fury’s office. Some of his confidence waned again when he took a good look at that door, the one which had inspired so much worry in him.

He couldn’t afford to dawdle though. There was no time to worry about it, not when he’d waited around for so long before getting here. He knocked on the door, heart pounding in time with it.

This time it didn’t take very long for the door to be opened. Fury seemed to be in a good mood today – the small smile he gave Steve seemed to be almost genuine, and like he was tired.

Steve tried not to put too much thought into whether Fury was tired or not – the man was enough of an enigma that trying to work out what was going on in his head was just too difficult. The weather outside had changed since Steve last got a glimpse of it, turning cloudy and grey. It wasn’t really all that surprising, but he hoped it wasn’t foreboding what was about to go down between the two of them.

There were even more papers on Fury’s desk than usual. Steve wondered whether they had anything to do with the fact that the current Captain America being here – that seemed like the sort of thing which would make the whole place much busier.

They went through the normal rigmarole. Steve asked his normal questions, they went through the whole thing of ‘is there anything I can do? No? okay’.

But this time, instead of taking the hint that Fury wanted him to leave so that he could get on with his day, he asked, “can I… ask for a favor?”

Fury stopped in his paper rustling. “…Of course you can,” he said, his attention turning back to Steve. Right, now he had to actually present his idea in a way that didn’t sound like he was being a petulant child.

Tapping his fingers on the table, he tried to think of the best way to word this. Given that it would be the first time he actually asked them for anything, he had no idea what the response would be - and he had no idea whether they'd allow it.

Fury was looking at him expectantly though – and he knew that he had to follow up, now that he’d asked for something.

Straightening up, he tried to summon his courage from earlier, that confidence in knowing who he was and what he was doing. He called Bucky’s face to mind – his sweet boyfriend, who was always so supportive and kind. It gave him strength.

“I want my shield,” he said, calmly and smoothly. “I know you have it, in the Smithsonian. I saw it there just yesterday. It, and the rest of my uniform, are my property, and I want them back.”

A bead of sweat formed on his forehead. He tried to ignore it.

Fury’s gaze balanced on something too much to bear – Steve could almost feel himself cracking under its weight. Why was it always so easy to crumble in situations like this, when he had faced much greater challenges? When he should have been more than comfortable in standing up for what he wanted?

But then, he had always been better at standing up for others, rather than himself.

Then Fury sighed, seeming to deflate. “Sure, whatever. The one in the museum is actually a replica, but I think we have the original somewhere around. What are you going to do with it, hang it on your wall?”

Steve blinked. What had just happened? Had Fury – had Shield just agreed to give him his shield? Just like that? “I – yeah, I guess?” It took him a moment to register what Fury had actually asked him. He didn’t actually have any solid plans for what he actually wanted to do with the shield once he had it – it had been more of a feeling that ‘that’s mine, I want it’ than anything else. “But – you mean it? I can have it?”

“I don’t see why not.” Fury shrugged. “I think you’ve proven that you can be trusted with it, even if it is Shield property.”

Steve nodded. “Thank you, sir.” He didn’t know where the honorific came from, but it seemed necessary if he was going to convince the man that he was worth giving the things to. It also felt odd to hear Fury say that the shield was technically shield property. Steve tried to think whether it had belonged to him or to the people who made it back in the day… he wasn’t sure they’d ever had the time to draw up such boundaries at the time, the lines blurred for whatever they needed them to be.

Then another thought crept into his mind. A reminder of his thoughts before he came here, something that brought his mood back down to earth. Fury seemed like he was beginning to wind down again, and there was something he wanted to mention before he did. He would feel awful if he didn’t at least try to let Fury know what was going on.

“I met Captain America earlier.”

The statement floated between them, coloring everything in a different light. Steve watched as Fury’s face twitched – a sure sign that the cogs were moving behind his eyes, his mind putting some of the things together.

“You did?” he asked. he seemed as calm as he normally did – but somehow it seemed fake to Steve, like he was having to force it, to fake it. “You – I didn’t know that your paths were going to cross.”

For once feeling like he had the upper hand in their conversation, Steve nodded. “Yeah, he was going down as I was coming up. He…”

Steve hesitated. He hadn’t meant to bring up any of this at all, but now that he was thinking about it again all he could see was how strange the man had seemed, how little he seemed to care for who he was, what he was representing.

That coldness that had lurked in his eyes.

He shifted.

He couldn’t say nothing about it, right? It wouldn’t feel right to do that, to ignore something that, at the time, had seemed so overwhelming, had dictated the whole of their interaction.

Steve leaned closer. Perhaps this was a terrible idea – he had no idea how close Fury and this new Captain were, whether this was going to be seen as some personal attack on their friendship. Whether Fury felt that he knew Eric well enough to dismiss everything he’d seen. “I didn’t think he seemed right for the role,” he went with.

His voice had been low, yet he looked around the room nervously, like he was expecting agents to materialize out of the walls and arrest him for treason. He didn’t know what would happen to him if that happened – or how anything of a disappearance would be explained to Bucky.

Oh god, Bucky. That was the one thought which drew him up short, made him rethink this attack.

But it was too late now - Fury had heard what he had to say on the matter, and now Steve couldn't take it back.

"Captain Rogers, perhaps you are unfamiliar with the choosing of the current Captain America, but I assure you that the panel assigned to his election knew what they were doing when they picked their candidate. Each of the men were extremely high up in the government, and knew who would get the job done, who they needed." Fury’s voice brokered no arguments.

And yet...

"But I'm not sure if you've seen what I saw," Steve pressed on, unable to shake the idea that there was something going on here.

And then, maybe if they did find there was something wrong with the current Captain, they'd give him his position back....

Fury regarded him. It seemed that there was some unidentifiable emotion in his eyes - something that Steve was causing. Maybe he was bringing Fury round to his point of view -

"How much research have you done into the current Captain America?" Fury asked this with no sign of the emotion that Steve could see.

This brought Steve’s argument to a halt. "Well - I mean - not much, but I do know a bit. I know.... Um..."

Damn it - why hadn't he paid more attention in the museum yesterday?

Oh, right, he'd been too distracted by Bucky. Really it was all his fault for getting himself a cute boyfriend.

The emotion on Fury’s face intensified. With a start, Steve realized that it was _pity._

"Have you considered that it might just be in your head?" Fury asked, any sense that he might be taking Steve seriously gone. "That all of this might be.... Jealousy?"

“I –“ Steve didn’t have it in him to admit that he had considered that already. “I don’t think it is,” he said. “I really think –“

“Steve, I don’t think I can allow you to continue this train of thought,” Fury interrupted. “Captain America is a good man. I know this for a fact. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he stood up, “I need to go elsewhere.”

Steve knew that he was being dismissed for real now. A small amount of anxiety stayed in his stomach – he couldn’t get rid of the feeling that he should have tried harder to make Fury believe what he was saying.

There was nothing he could do about it though.

It remained in his mind the entire time that he made his way down to the lobby. He tried to distract himself by texting Bucky that he was done, and that he would be back soon – but it only worked to an extent.

By this point he wasn’t even sure where Bucky was. Getting into the rental car (he didn’t trust any of the drivers that Shield had), he got his phone out again, hoping that Bucky might have replied by now.

Luckily, he had.

Buckster  
hey babe! I finished up the museum earlier than I thought, so I headed back to the hotel ^_^

It didn’t take Steve too long to get back there, even with all the traffic. He’d not really done much driving in all the time he’d been unfrozen, and he was all too aware that the main reason he hadn’t crashed yet had been his reflex times. (Shield had mostly given him the drivers license for ID reasons – he wasn’t sure they’d ever imagined that he’d ever use it as an excuse to actually be able to drive. There were so many _rules_ now.)

Getting back to the hotel without causing an accidents (that he was aware of, at least), Steve headed right up to their room. He’d not seen Bucky since this morning (and he’d been asleep at the time), and he couldn’t wait to find out what Bucky had gotten up to today.

As it turned out, it had been very similar to the previous day. “So I spent all of the time there, and look – I took so many pictures, you should look at them!”

Bucky spent at least half an hour talking Steve through every picture he’d taken at the museum – and Steve found himself enjoying it, genuinely. It was a nice time, even if he would never had imagined being this genuinely interested in history.

**

By the time they left the city, Steve felt exhausted but satisfied. Somehow the simple addition of bringing his boyfriend with him had made the whole trip so much better, and he knew that every other trip, even with the bonus of going in the fancy jet, had paled in comparison. Even though it had always been nerve wracking, the fact that he got to leave the city and do something that felt worthwhile made it somewhat exciting. That had been changing lately anyway – and this had only made it seem worse.

They napped on the train home. Bucky got the window seat again – Steve had teased him the whole journey to the train station that he was going to take the seat, and it had only made Bucky sulk. It had been adorable, and Bucky had known that it wasn’t serious – but he hadn’t been able to actually deny Bucky what he wanted by the time they got to the train itself.

Steve had had vague thoughts of continuing to read the same book he’d started on the way in – but ten minutes into the journey, Bucky’s head had been resting against the window he was meant to be looking out of, and Steve quickly followed suit.

It was only as they arrived back into New York that Steve even realized that he had fallen asleep. Eyes opening blearily, he registered that his head was on Bucky’s shoulder, and his book was only hanging onto his fingers by an inch. It was sort of adorable of them – but at the same time, slightly frustrating.

Now he was going to have to read his book when they got back home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Literally the smithsonian scene was one I had planned right from the start - i just loved the idea of expanding on the weird exhibit steve has about himself in tws and making it about all of the caps


	7. Chapter 5.5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys - I'm afraid I'm only uploading one chapter today. Chapter 6 just isn't done yet, and I'm far too tired to finish it today. I'm hoping to get it up tomorrow, but if it's not it'll be up the day after that, I promise. Enjoy!

“Charles Cooper was born in California in 1958 to a well off family. There are a great deal of records about his young life, as he was, as a baby, a star in several successful movies – beginning his career as a star in the limelight. It is unclear how much of a normal childhood Charles received, as he continued to play minor roles in several Hollywood films, which it is speculated his parents had a large hand in encouraging him to participate in…”  
North, K., _The Third Captain: A Radical New Approach,_ (1999), p5

“As searches began for the next Captain America, thousands of young men were interviewed for the position. This was nothing like the appointment of Ronnie Acton, who had been chosen 30 years previously, wherein there was one candidate approached at a time – this one felt a lot more like a casting call. In his own words, Cooper said, “I just auditioned like I would for anything else, you know? Like, you turn up, get given a script and a few props, and then they turned the camera on you. It was no big deal – really it was either this or auditioning to be in The Empire Strikes Back.” (KDY 9538) Cooper makes it very clear that he considered this role to be no different to his others, at least in the beginning.”  
Barnes, J. B., _Sexy Captain? A Discussion on the Worth and Popularity of Captain America_ , 1979-2011, (2011), p11

“After his appointment, Cooper immediately took on the same duties as Acton had, going to events and acting as a spokesperson for the government. He proved to be very effective in this duty, appearing in hundreds of commercials and posters in an effort to drum up pro-government sentiment…”  
Striker, T., _Shields and Subservience_ , (1987), p134

“It is thought that Cooper had not the reservations that Acton had had about the things that he was being required to advertise. Being only 18 when he was chosen for the part, Cooper had not had the military experience of Acton, and therefore it is suspected that he simply cared less for the message. Some have argued that it was wrong in the first place for the government to allow someone so young and inexperienced to take on the role in the first place…”  
North, K., _The Third Captain: A Radical New Approach_ (1999), p32

“Speaking in 1980, the year after taking on the job, Cooper said in an interview, “Well they wouldn’t have chosen me if I wasn’t the best person for the job, right? I turned up to the audition just like anybody else, and if anyone else had been better, they would have chosen them.” At the time, this interview was very well received by his fangirls.”  
Barnes, J. B., _Sexy Captain? A Discussion on the Worth and Popularity of Captain America_ , 1979-2011, (2011), p64

“Being an 18 year old thrust into the limelight, the role of Captain America suddenly became sexy. For all the girls who had grown up with their Captain being an old man, suddenly being given a young, thin, attractive captain entirely changed the demographic which was interested in what the good captain had to say. Unlike Acton, who had liked to give statements to reputable newspapers, like the New York Times, Cooper preferred to go with whichever publication was going to get him more exposure with his teenaged fans – and they lapped it up.”  
Barnes, J. B., _Sexy Captain? A Discussion on the Worth and Popularity of Captain America_ , 1979-2011, (2011), p45

“Unlike Acton, the way that Cooper threw himself in to the trappings of the role added a real performative element to the way that he went about it. Shown here in these pictures, Cooper enjoyed being given roles that were, quite literally, acting. The government staged a battle for Cooper to be in, as there were few for him to be in in real life – and the ones that he was in weren’t exactly the type you could take pictures of. Besides, the only fighting training that Cooper received was theatrical, and he used this to his advantage. Unfortunately, this meant that he was not the most difficult person to fight.

There is a small amount of footage from a time where he was attacked while on a parade. Being 25 years old at the time, he should not have been an easy target – and yet he falls easily, knocked to the ground. The press coverage manage to get a glimpse of his injuries, and it is very clear that the majority of his face is bruised.”  
North, K., _The Third Captain: A Radical New Approach_ (1999), p78

“The films that Cooper took part in while still being Captain America are interesting. While the government could not allow him to full commit to being a main character, he starred in many, many cameos, sometimes as Captain America, and sometimes as other minor characters. Unlike Acton, the image that Cooper puts out is that he is Captain America, Captain America is not him. It becomes just another character that he plays – making the continuation of his acting career make sense, but ultimately fail him.”  
Brewis, D., _Film Star or Fake Star? The Popularity of Charles Cooper in the Media_ , (2004), p60

“Even into later life, Cooper remained popular. This was his major contribution – remaining popular with those who liked to see handsome men. in many ways though, this meant that ultimately the government had failed. As they had pulled out of places like Korea and Vietnam years previously, he was no longer useful for actively getting men to sign up to the army, and they found that he was more of a liability than anything else. They couldn’t let him be a real soldier, as he had not received the training, and by this point it would seem odd to see Captain America needing the most basic of basic training. Nor did Cooper wish to join the army. This would have been far too real for him, in the midst of his acting career.”  
Striker, T., _Shields and Subservience_ , (1987), p210

“Over the years, it became the case that Cooper’s Captain became much like any other celebrity. There was very little of the sense of mystery which had surrounded the previous two – and gradually the idea that Captain America was anyone who would actually be capable of fighting when necessary became ridiculous. Perhaps for the time – especially given the notable lack of invading aliens – it made sense. The need for a figurehead for regular war became obsolete.”  
Nugent, L., _Third Time Lucky_ , (2007), p29

“Later on in his life, Cooper admitted that he may have leaned in a little too hard with the ‘ladies man’ angle. “I thought it was just like becoming any other celebrity, really,” he admitted after he had stepped down from the role. I really wanted to be famous, and for a while I just didn’t care where that was going to come from, all I knew was that I wanted to get it, just like all my friends from high school were.”  
Brewis, D., _Film Star or Fake Star? The Popularity of Charles Cooper in the Media_ , (2004), p72

“By the time it came for Cooper to step down, the government took more control over the process. They had learned that they needed someone different to be their new Captain.”  
Nugent, L., _Third Time Lucky_ , (2007), p79


	8. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this chapter makes sense.......... I've been very tired today and I don't have the mental energy to go over it any more
> 
> Also as a warning from here on out you're going to be wondering what the heck the pacing in this fic is, because even i don't know

Even after they got back from DC, Steve couldn’t help but think about what he’d seen in the museum. Not even the things about the other captains – although that did also pop into his thoughts from time to time – but mostly the mementoes from his past. He didn’t necessarily want his drawings back… but it had reminded him that it was a pastime that he’d forgotten about for the past year.

He’d bought art supplies the day after they got back. It had been unplanned – but when he had passed it on the way back from the gym, he’d been unable to resist. He must have walked past it a thousand times before on his way back – but he’d never thought to go inside until now.

Despite the differences in quality of the things he found in there, there was a sense of familiarity, of knowing what things he wanted to buy. It was a boon to have the money to not have to worry about how expensive it all was – his younger self would have killed to be able to buy so much all at once.

It felt good to do, good to buy. He walked out of the shop with three bags of supplies, all of which he was incredibly pleased with.

When he got home with them, the first thing he did was put them on a table, and took a picture of them to send to Bucky.

Bucko  
!!! you did it!

Steve  
I know!! It was so expensive

Bucko  
itll be worth it though!

Bucko  
what are you gonna draw first?

That was the thing that drew Steve up short. He didn’t know the answer to that question, even with all the excitement he had for all he’d just bought.

He ended up not answering Bucky’s question.

Sitting there, looking at his purchases, he tried to drum up inspiration for his first drawing in years. He pulled out one of the good sketchbooks, picked out some colored pencils and some greyscale ones, and set them out in front of him. It was a familiar sight, one which he had spent countless hours sat in front of.

And yet, even with all of that to encourage him, he couldn’t come up with a single iota of inspiration. His page remained infuriatingly blank. No matter how much he tapped a pencil against the page, against his lip, against the side of his head, no ideas came to him.

That fact scared him.

It had always been a given that, even though he hadn’t wanted to draw so far in this century, that when he wanted to he’d be able to. There had been no question that the moment he picked up his tools, he would find it coming to him just as easily as it had always done. After all, even when he had been in the middle of a warzone, exhausted and covered in mud, that he would be able to unwind easily through sketching his companions, his surroundings, or his memories of home. There had never been any lack of subjects.

Until now.

Frustrated, he put them away at the back of his closet. It would keep them safe until he was able to get in the right headspace.

He told himself that he wouldn’t tell Bucky about how badly it was going. Not when his boyfriend was so supportive, so happy that Steve had found something to do that wasn’t mope. It would stay his secret – and when he fixed himself, he could pretend like everything had been fine all along.

It would be just one more lie to add to the ones he was already telling.

**

Steve woke to the sound of knocking at his door. It was loud, and obnoxious – and he was tired. All he wanted to do was go back to sleep. To be fair, it was his own fault. Staying up late to talk to Bucky was usually a bad idea, but this time it really had turned out to be.

The sound and all of its ramifications didn’t seem to really set in until a second set of knocks came.

Right – he needed to actually get up and answer the door.

Stiffly, he got up. Every sudden movement sent a shock of pain through his head, almost like he was unwell. That was unusual – for the most part, any pain he felt was the direct result of an injury.

Shaking it off as best as he could, Steve pulled on a shirt and made his way over to the door. The knocking had continued the entire time – clearly someone _really_ wanted to talk to him.

With eyes that were still heavy from sleep, Steve opened his door. “Yes?”

“Delivery for… Steven Rogers?” The delivery man in front of him looked at the clipboard in front of him instead of at Steve.

Steve tried to wake himself up a little. “That’s me.”

“Sign here.”

The clipboard, and a pen, were thrust at him. Steve signed at the line the man had pointed out. He’d only received a few deliveries in all his time in this century. Generally it was too much effort to let the delivery people up to his apartment – he wasn’t actually sure how this one had managed to get up without contacting him in any way.

The delivery man, who still had paid almost no attention to him, took the clipboard back, and turned around. It was only at this point that Steve noticed the huge pile of boxes that had presumably been behind him this whole time – and it was clear that the delivery man was struggling to pick them up.

Well, he couldn’t stand there and watch him struggle, that would just be cruel. “Here, let me help you,” Steve said, propping open his door and going to pick up the top box.

Together, they brought the boxes into Steve’s apartment, putting them just inside the door. Even with Steve’s extra strength, he knew that it was pretty heavy – and even now he still had no idea what was in them.

The delivery man left quickly, with very little fanfare. Steve closed his door, allowing himself to yawn now that he was alone. Going into the kitchen, he began to hunt for scissors.

As he went to open the box, he found himself hesitating. What if it was something dangerous? He remembered the paranoia he’d felt when Nadine had given him her cookies, which had turned out to be unfounded. But that didn’t make him any less right to have done that.

But he had to know what it was.

Taking the plunge, he opened the first box.

The first thing he saw was a mass of a familiar shade of blue. He reached out and touched it, the fabric soft, just like he expected it to be.

Pulling it out of the box, he held the suit at arms’ length to get a good look at it. It didn’t quite look like he remembered it – it was quite clear that this was not _his_ suit. But it was a damn close replica, and clearly not a cheap one either.

He hadn’t asked for it either.

His first reaction was that this was a good thing. He had something that made him feel like himself again.

In other ways, the second thought that he had was that this was going to be bad – now he had to be able to hide all of it from Bucky. It would be much harder with tangible evidence hiding away in his apartment.

Sighing, he wondered what he’d been thinking when he thought that it would be a good idea to ask Fury for his things back. Stuffing the uniform back into the box, he sat looking at it for a few minutes. He could remember that initial anger that he’d felt looking at them from behind the glass. That feeling, that surge of injustice, of being left out of decisions which involved him, had been so strong that he perhaps hadn’t been thinking clearly.

It was nice to have them, but it might not have been worth doing.

Heaving the box up, Steve went to put it away. He’d like to have more time to look over it, to really have a good long look at it, and enjoy it, but he just couldn’t.

It took longer than he liked to clear a space in his closet and make the things hidden. He would have liked to be able to hang the up properly, but if he did it would only show it off. And while he would entirely expect to see something like that in Bucky’s closet, his boyfriend would probably be very surprised to see it in there.

Other things that he owned were easy enough to put on top of it, and soon enough it was hidden almost well enough that he could have forgotten himself that they were there. There was no way that anybody else was going to find them, not unless someone went rummaging through his closet.

Wasn’t that just the most miserable kind of metaphor for his life? Steve thought grimly. He had these parts of his life tucked away, like they were a shameful secret, and there was nothing he could do about it. He couldn’t allow it to get out to anyone, for fear of what might happen otherwise.

**

Despite the fact that he still hadn’t found the courage to start drawing anything else, Steve couldn’t resist looking into what artists these days did. Somehow it astounded him just how many art courses there were at colleges – and he found himself fascinated by what they taught, and at the fact that art had moved on a bit from when he had been younger.

He wasn’t even sure if that was something that he would be capable of doing. Not only from a technical standpoint, but from a ‘I’ve not had to do any schoolwork for the past ten years’ standpoint.

In a way, it almost became his little secret, that he would look at in his spare time.

It didn't take long for Bucky to catch him looking at art courses online. True, it was an accident at first - he'd put his laptop on sleep and left the tab open - but once his boyfriend knew about his plans, it made everything easier. Having someone around who knew what the deal was with colleges nowadays made it so much easier to navigate all the talk of tuition fees and financial aid and scholarships. Otherwise, it would have been an actual nightmare.

Passing his lack of knowledge off as just something he'd never bothered to learn about, Steve managed to make it all the way to the ‘I’m genuinely considering applying for art school’ stage when he realized that all of them asked for a portfolio.

And unless he was going to be allowed to get his old drawings from the Smithsonian, then he had nothing to show for himself.

It was at that point that he realized he was fucked.

"I don’t know," he said to Bucky one evening when they'd just spent hours looking at courses. "I've not actually done any art in years. What if I'm not that good any more?"

Bucky moved his head slightly from where it was tucked into Steve's neck to look up at him. "You really think that?" He asked.

Steve thought about it for a second. "I don't know... Maybe," he said finally.

"Well the only way you'll know is if you find out."

Damn. It was a good point.

He'd never been brave enough to use the paints he'd bought that second day.

But he’d have to be able to draw if he was going to go to school for it.

It had to happen whether he liked it or not.

And right now, he didn’t like the idea.

**

Steve was in the middle of a message to Bucky when the reminder came up on his phone. ‘dc in three days’. It was a necessary thing, to have a reminder for when it was.

Not thinking twice, he dismissed the reminder and continued on with his message.

He was reminded of it later, when he had a moment to think about it. It had been such a part of his life for the past year, such a normal part of his routine that he hadn’t even thought twice about it.

But as the fact settled in his mind, the more he began to think that he actually didn’t want to go this time. It never seemed worth it – and with the memories of last month fresh in his mind, he couldn’t help but think that going by himself again would be incredibly depressing by comparison.

A revolutionary thought crept into his mind.

What if he… didn’t go to DC this time?

He played with the idea over the rest of the day. Imaginings of what would happen if he didn’t go ranged from Fury being furious at him, to nobody caring at all. It was just to impossible to tell whether the reaction would be even remotely acceptable or not.

But the more he thought about it, the more the idea of not going felt freeing. Like he was finally doing something for himself, not just doing what Fury had told him to do at the beginning. It would go along with his plans for art school, and it would definitely free up some time that he would otherwise waste by travelling to dc.

It ended up being too tempting to resist.

He eyed up Fury’s number in his phone. It was right there – but he’d never had need to contact Fury himself. Would the number even get him through to Fury any time soon? Fury didn’t seem the type to answer his own phone, especially for him.

There was nothing for it.

Hesitantly, he pressed the ‘call’ button.

It rang for a long time. It was something that Steve had gathered was rare nowadays – when people’s phones were so close to them all the time, answers usually came pretty quickly. Steve had seen Bucky answering the phone with his friends a few times – and it had never taken very long.

An eternity. That’s how long it felt like, that he spent waiting on the phone just for anyone to answer. It didn’t even go to voicemail – it just kept ringing and ringing.

Just as he was about to give up, to hang up and try again another time, someone picked up.

“Hello, Director Fury’s phone, can I help you?”

Steve didn’t recognize the voice. That was a bad sign. How was he meant to get his message across if he couldn’t

“…uh, yeah, I need to speak to the director.” Did he sound too indecisive? If he did, it was probably because he hadn’t anticipated having to talk to someone other than Fury. He shifted.

There was a pause on the line. Steve clutched his phone to his ear harder.

“The director isn’t available right now. Can I take a message?” The woman’s voice sounded vaguely suspicious.

Shit. Was Fury actually unable to get to the phone, or did they just not believe him?

Maybe it didn’t matter. He coughed, trying to clear his throat and his mind. “I just need to let him know that I won’t be coming to our meeting on Friday,” he said.

Another pause. Then, “okay, and can I take a name?”

“Steve.”

“Thank you, bye.”

Steve blinked. That was it? Oh god, it definitely didn’t feel like he’d been able to include enough information. Should he call them back? He pulled his phone away from his ear, staring down at it as he wondered what he should do next.

No.

No, he’d leave it at that. Maybe Fury would call him back, if there was any sort of problem with that. Maybe Fury wouldn’t get the message at all, and he’d have to deal with a vaguely irritated phone call with him when he didn’t show up.

A year ago the idea would have terrified him. He’d been so sure at that time that the right thing to do was to stay as connected to shield as possible, so he could be of use if necessarily.

But now? He didn’t even feel bad about it, not when he couldn’t understand why Fury had allowed the farce to go on for so long. Did he really think that Steve wouldn’t have noticed that there wasn’t exactly much of a point to his going to dc every month?

Feeling pretty good about it all, anxiety fading, he put his phone down. He did the thing. He possibly made Fury mad at him, but it was all for a good reason, whether they liked it or not.

Maybe he could do something that day to celebrate?

Picking his phone back up, he opened his messages with Bucky.

‘do you wanna go out on Wednesday? I was thinking we could do dinner.’

**

Steve woke up in Bucky’s bed knowing what he had to do today.

“What’re you doing?” Bucky mumbled, as Steve sat up in bed.

“I have to go,” Steve said, yawning but still getting out of bed.

That seemed to wake Bucky up a little more. “Wait, what?” He sat up, bed hair ruffled, a concerned look on his face.

In his sleepy state, Steve realized too late how bad his words probably sounded, especially so early in the morning. “Oh – no, I just realized something, but I have to do it in my apartment.”

He pulled on a shirt. Bucky still looked worried, even with his bleary eyes making Steve want to get back into bed with him. “Will – will you message me later?” He asked, still sounding confused.

“Of course, baby.”

He kissed Bucky one more time, just for luck, and sped out the door.

It really was his own fault for leaving all of his art supplies at home. He could have brought some of them with him, as a just in case – but then, the whole point was that he hadn’t done anything yet, and didn’t know if he was going to do any at all, ever.

He was jittery the whole walk. On the one hand, he didn’t want to stop thinking about his idea in case he forgot it – but on the other hand, he didn’t want to take the time to write it down, because it would make him take longer overall. By the time he reached his apartment, he was nearly a mess of nerves.

In complete contrast to how he had been the last time, he pulled everything out haphazardly, like he didn’t care about any of it. Sheets of paper were strewn over the table, pencil packets were thrown on top of them (well, not thrown, he didn’t actually want to break them).

When he actually felt ready to start, the table looked like an art store had thrown up over it.

Thankfully, he had plenty of inspiration for what he was going to do. Picking up the pencils, he began to draw frantically, trying to get his vision down.

It was almost like a haze that he was brought into, a special headspace where nothing else existed aside from the page in front of him.

It was only when his hand began to cramp that he realized just how long he’d been sat there for. He could probably use a break – and he let go of the pencil in his hand, flexing his fingers out to get rid of the cramping that had begun in them. The page he had been drawing on was covered in grey pencil, the beginnings of one of the hiking trails they had taken there. His photographic memory really did come in handy a lot of the time – they had only done this trail one time, but it had been so beautiful that he had been able to remember every detail from it.

Looking at his phone, which was sat on the table near to him, he noticed that the notification light was flashing. Picking it up, he saw that he had five texts from Bucky – an unusually high number.

Bucko  
Hope you’re okay babe! Let me know when you get home!

Bucko  
I’m guessing youre busy – don’t work too hard!

Bucko  
Stevie? You good?

Bucko  
:(

Bucko  
Message me when you can, okay?

Steve hadn’t realized just how long he’d gone without talking to Bucky. Guiltily, he typed out a quick reply.

Me  
Sorry baby! I got so distracted, I lost track of the time. I’m all good, I promise.

There was no immediate reply, but that was okay - so long as Bucky got the message, that was all he cared about, really.

He looked back at his art with fresh eyes. Without the frenzy that had overtaken him before, it seemed different, detached from him in some way.

So many of the pencils that were now littered around the paper were blunted, starkly different from their previous perfect state.

And he wasn’t even done yet.

It was like the floodgates had opened, his brain full of inspiration and ideas, and he wanted nothing more than to continue.

Making sure that he had his pencil sharpener to hand, he pulled fresh paper towards him.

**

Bucky’s head swiveled towards the tv. “Oh – quick turn it up!”

Confused, Steve lunged for the remote. He didn’t even know what was on the tv – all he could see was the way that Bucky’s eyes were fixed on the tv. And that was ll he really needed to be able to see. He knew what that look meant.

It was a look that meant ‘something Captain America related is on tv and I want to see it’.

“…the hero is back in New York and ready to make all the children very happy.”

Steve finally looked at the tv. A familiar figure stood there on the screen, surrounded by screaming children. Bucky seemed amused by the image.

For Steve, though, there seemed to be a more sinister side to it. On the surface, sure, he looked like any celebrity surrounded by their adoring fans. But, just like the last time Steve had seen Captain America, there seemed to be something too performative about it, like the man was just playing the role. Sure, Captain America was a role – but it should be backed up by a genuine belief in what it stood for. Steve just couldn’t believe, as he looked into the man’s dark eyes, that any of it was real.

Looking at Bucky, he thought about mentioning it. About telling someone his fears who might actually believe it.

But the idea that Bucky would believe that his hero was capable of being anyone other than what he presented himself as was ridiculous. He could see how much Bucky was enjoying the report, which seemed to be about some kind of press thing that the guy was doing.

In fact, thinking about it, Steve actually wasn’t sure that he’d ever actually seen a report where he was doing anything else.

What a douche.

All Steve could think about was that one meeting he’d had with the guy. Where he had been extremely strange.

He still wasn’t convinced by Fury’s assertions that he was a good man. It was hard to think that when he’d acted so strangely the time Steve saw him in person. It may have been nearly a month ago, but the incident still stuck in his mind vividly.

Thankfully, the news report moved on, and this turned out to not be one of the times that Bucky felt compelled to start talking about Captain America afterwards. (Not that Steve minded when Bucky did that, but sometimes he just wanted to forget about the man’s existence.)

**

The date that he was supposed to go to dc came and went with no communication from Fury.

In fact, it had come without him even realizing it.

“Are you ready to go? If we don’t leave soon we’ll lose our booking!”

Bucky’s voice was muffled by the walls between them, and Steve looked up guiltily. His fingers had forgotten how to tie a tie, and he had only just gotten it done.

“Coming!”

There was too much of a rush as they headed out. Bucky was the one who herded them out of the door. (Mostly Steve thought it was funny, which only made Bucky more mad.)

Somehow they made it to the restaurant ten minutes early after all. (Their server seemed bemused by how hilarious they found this.)

It was when they were in the middle of eating that Steve remembered why he’d wanted to have this meal in the first place. Coming to him with a start, he wildly realized that he would usually have been in bed by now, exhausted after a long day.

Instead, he was well rested and feeling good. And there was so much less stress than there would be otherwise.

He ended up enjoying the evening much more after he realized that.

The next couple of months passed in the same manner. Fury never contacted him, either to tell him off or to question the reasoning for stopping going. That whole side to his life really fell to the wayside. It wasn’t that Steve stopped caring when he saw things about superheroes on the tv, but he tried to no longer feel like he should be the one helping.

It didn’t really work, but it sort of made him feel better about it all.

The time for applying for art college came – and he found that not only was his portfolio plenty big enough, but also that they liked his work? This had come as somewhat of a surprise to Steve, but Bucky did his best to try to make Steve believe that it was entirely deserved.

Suddenly, almost out of nowhere, he could almost believe that his past was all in his imagination. That he’d lived here his entire life. That he fitted in, a complete natural.

**

Bucky looked across at Steve. “So, are you nervous?” He asked, watching the man’s blond hair reflect the light.

Steve looked up at him, frowning slightly like he often did. “What do you mean?” He asked, picking up one of his forks and beginning to play with it.

Bucky laughed. “Well it’s been a while since you were in school, right? Like you went into the military right after high school, and all that. Surely you must be a bit nervous about having to go back to that.” Bucky would never understand the logic behind wanting to go into the military so soon – or ever – but he knew that it was something that was important to Steve that he had done. Even if never talked about it, Bucky knew that it had been something very formative.

Nodding absently, eyes sort of unfocused and on the table, Steve said, “yeah, I guess so. But I got pretty used to following orders and being on time when I was in the army, so I guess that’s something that that and college have in common, right?” He looked up and shot his stupid cheesy grin at Bucky.

“Yeah, but one has more fighting than the other,” Bucky pointed out, doing his best to cheer Steve into a better mood. When that didn’t work, he added, “it’s college, and it’s all over football.”

Steve barked out a laugh, his eyes snapping up to Bucky’s, attention fully grabbed. It was a good feeling.

They paused their conversation momentarily to order drinks. Bucky let Steve order for both of them – somehow Steve always seemed to make the best, most random choices of drinks, and he always liked seeing what they would get accidentally this time. As he did so, Bucky allowed himself to just watch Steve. Even after all these months, he still didn’t actually know how he’d gotten so lucky that he’d managed to snag someone like Steve. If he’d been asked to describe his ideal man before meeting Steve… well, maybe it wouldn’t have been someone who barely knew who Captain America was before meeting him, but it would have included a lot of the traits that Steve had.

Steve’s eyes somehow looked more blue in this lighting. Bucky didn’t even know how that was even possible, but it worked – and it made him remember just how much time he could spend just looking at Steve’s perfection. Sometimes Bucky thought that Steve wasn’t even fully aware of how attractive he was – and while Bucky fully understood why, he still thought it was sort of a travesty that it was the case.

“Where were we?” Steve asked as their waitress left. (Bucky hadn’t missed the appreciative looks she’d been giving Steve’s arms, but Bucky wasn’t the jealous type. After nine months of relationship, he was pretty confident that Steve wasn’t about to abandon him for some random woman he didn’t know.)

Bucky smirked. “We were talking about how nervous you are for your big college debut next week.”

“No we weren’t,” Steve chuckled. “In fact, I distinctly remember saying something about how I wasn’t nervous at all.”

Bucky shrugged. “I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree, then.”

“I think not,” Steve disagreed, laughing. “I think if anything, you’re going to be more nervous to go back to classes. Didn’t you say that you were having to take on more classes this year? So you’ll have to do more?”

Bucky groaned. “Don’t remind me.” He’d been so happy at the end of the last year, when they told him that they finally had room to squeeze in that extra class on Charles and Eric. It had been so much fun to plan, but as the time got closer, the more he realized that he was going to have to fit all of it in with his pre-existing classes, and somehow still have a life.

“I’m sure you’ll do great with it, babe.” Steve always managed to turn moments like these into serious ones. He looked at Bucky with those baby blue eyes, and the small amounts of anxiety that had begun to fill Bucky fell away, no match for Steve’s ability to make him feel better at all costs.

Feeling slightly lighter than he had done before, Bucky grabbed onto Steve’s hand on top of the table. Without needing to say anything, Steve squeezed his hand gently, knowing that Bucky needed that reminder of support just now.

Just like he always did.

Bucky was probably about to open his mouth and say something cheesy, when their waitress came back over. She was carrying their drinks, and after placing them on the table, asked, “are you guys ready to order?” Bucky didn’t miss the way that her eyes lingered on their clasped hands. It felt like a small victory.

Bucky realized at this moment that aside from the point at which they’d sat down and taken a cursory glance over the menu, they’d barely looked at the food here. “Um –“ he looked at Steve for help.

Somehow, Steve didn’t look worried at all. “Yeah, we’ll have…” Bucky zoned out, slightly in awe of his boyfriend.

“Did you look at the menu before we came again?” Bucky whispered to Steve, leaning slightly over the table so that the waitress couldn’t hear them after she left.

Steve looked slightly guilty. “…maybe?” He said. “I just really wanted to be prepared for when we came, and I just thought of it as preparation for coming here, and I didn’t even think about that until this just happened and I didn’t think that you’d want to send her away to order later, and –“

“It’s fine,” Bucky said as gently as he could, interrupting Steve’s rambling. “I don’t mind. You know my tastes pretty well by now. I don’t mind you ordering for me every once in a while.”

“Are you sure?” Steve still looked doubtful – a massive contrast from how he had looked just a minute ago when he was ordering for them like some suave gentleman. It was sort of incredible how he could just turn that on when he needed to – and it wasn’t like Bucky didn’t appreciate that.

He nodded. “I’m sure,” he said, trying not to let on how much he actually liked it.

“Good.” Steve sounded genuinely relieved, and Bucky almost felt bad about it.

“Enough about that – have you had a look at your classes yet?” Bucky asked, intentionally changing the subject back to something a little less stressful.

Steve shook his head. “No, I meant to, but I got caught up last night watching that show you recommended me last week, and I forgot to before I went to sleep.” He had that mischievous grin on his face again – and Bucky was always a bit suspicious when that came out.

“I take it you enjoyed it then? Was that the day when you didn’t wake up until ten the next morning?” Bucky asked, needing to get as much information out of him as he could.

Steve grinned sheepishly. “Yeah,” he said, beginning to fiddle with the napkin. “I just hadn’t seen comedy like that in a while. I mean, who knew a cop show could be that funny?”

“I know right?” Bucky had to stop himself from practically vibrating with excitement. “I told you you’d like it, and you were the one that didn’t believe me. Aren’t you glad you gave it a shot now?”

They talked about that until their food arrived. Well, not entirely about that, but Steve clearly had more thoughts tm about it than either of them had anticipated.

Once the food arrived, conversation died down a little. Since this place was a little fancier, them wanting to have a splurge before they had to go back to a normal routine, the food was even better than from the places they normally went to. Bucky could definitely appreciate that.

At one point, they ended up talking about the new ideas Steve had come up with in the few days since he had last done any drawing. Bucky hadn’t even realized until he began to draw a few months ago that he was capable of getting so passionate about anything like that – it had usually been Bucky getting excited about something and rambling on about it for ages. It had been very enjoyable to see Steve enjoying himself, coming out of his shell a bit.

Despite being rather different, more confident, than the man whom he had met that day in the bookshop, Bucky still found himself as much in love with him as ever.


	9. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here we goooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Steve woke up slowly. The room was still dark, and he rolled over to put an arm around Bucky and pull him closer. His boyfriend was still snoring next to him, and he was still sleepy.

There was no thinking about what today was going to bring, no worrying about whether he’d submitted everything correctly. Just sleepy cuddles – the best kind.

After an amount of time – and Steve didn’t know how long it was, but it was lighter by this time – he awoke with a start to his alarm going off.

Heart pounding, he reached over to turn it off. He was used to waking up early to an alarm – it had been his routine for nearly two years now – but this time it was different. This time the racing heart came from nerves – and Steve didn’t particularly like it.

Beside him, Bucky began to stir. Steve couldn’t resist taking a second to kiss his forehead before he got up (a very necessary thing).

He carefully got out of bed and picked out some clothes. Normally he didn’t think about anything like that too carefully – but today was his first day of college, and he wanted to make a good impression, as far as he could.

Choosing an outfit he felt embodied ‘I’m going to my first college lecture today and I don’t want to look like I’m trying too hard’, he headed to the shower.

Having a shower in the morning usually helped him to wake up. That didn’t seem to be the same case today though – as the warm water flowed over him, it only seemed to make him sleepy.

Jumping as he felt arms snake their way around him, Steve only relaxed when he saw that he recognized the arms.

“You didn’t wake me up to come shower with you,” Bucky muttered, resting his forehead against Steve’s back.

Smiling, Steve put a hand over one of Bucky’s. “Sorry, I thought you’d want to sleep more.”

Bucky sighed. “Nah, I should be getting ready too.”

Fortunately, both of them were all too aware that they were too sleepy and too time crunched to do anything frisky. Only washing (and nearly going back to sleep) happened in that shower.

By the time they got out of the shower, Steve at least felt less tired, if not less nervous.

Actually, scratch that, he was more nervous.

“Remind me what you said about doing well in college?” Steve asked, picking up a towel and handing it to Bucky.

Bucky began to dry himself off. “I said that you should try your best. That’s all you can do.”

Steve snorted, and took a towel for himself. “No, not that, the other one.”

Bucky squinted at him for a second. Then his expression cleared into understanding. “Oh, right – yeah, don’t buy your textbooks if you can rent them or get them second hand. They’re stupidly expensive.”

“You think they’ll ask me to get many textbooks for art school?” Steve asked, walking back out into the bedroom. “I mean, I’ll mostly just be drawing, right?”

Bucky shrugged. “I mean, it’s not impossible,” he said. “For real though, I know you didn’t go to college when you were younger, but I spent so much money on textbooks in my first few years of college. I hate that I have to tell my students to buy such expensive books, but the information in them is so critical.” He shrugged, following Steve back out, making sure to shake his hair out and getting water droplets everywhere.

They devolved into giggling schoolchildren for a while, Steve pretending to be mad about the water getting on him and a small wresting match happening. It ended with Steve hefting Bucky over his shoulder – something which seemed to surprise his boyfriend perhaps a little too much, if the boner digging into his shoulder was anything to go by.

Steve flopped them both down onto the bed. “That was far too much exercise this early in the morning,” Bucky wheezed. “Plus I’m pretty sure your shoulder winded me when it hit my chest.”

A pat on the chest was all Steve could muster up himself.

Steve’s second alarm ringing was what made them realize that they were actually going to be late if they weren’t careful.

“Shit,” Bucky said, scrambling to his feet with the sheets tangling around them. “I can’t be late again, or my students will start asking about you again.”

“Wait, when did they do that?” Steve’s face screwed up in confusion.

Bucky paused, halfway through picking out socks. “Did… did I not tell you about that?” he asked, cheeks slowly turning pink.

Steve shook his head.

“Oh – um, well, they do that sometimes. You know, they try to tease me about it from that time they saw us together. And they like to insinuate that you’re what makes me late.” Bucky ducked his head, busying himself with getting ready.

Steve was quiet for a minute. Then, as the mental image of Bucky having to fend off these questions and becoming flustered came to mind, he began to laugh – it was just too amusing to think about. Bucky didn’t seem to mind that too much, thankfully – although that might have been more because he was trying to get dressed.

In all honesty that reminded him that was meant to be getting ready too.

There was little talking from that point. Both of them knew that they needed to actually get going sometime soon – and neither of them could afford to be late today.

Bucky was the first to leave. Steve gave him a kiss before he went off – and it felt a little like they were a couple living together, that lived together and did this every day. Nice and domestic.

Steve liked this idea – but unfortunately he didn’t have the time to think about it anymore than he already had without running the possibility of being late.

Looking down, he made sure that he was dressed correctly (according to Bucky, the worst faux pas you could make on your first day in college), Steve started when he saw the t shirt he was wearing. It was one of Bucky’s – his boyfriend must have left it here at some point. Unsurprising, since it was one of his favorites. Dark blue, it was meant to look like the front upper torso of the Captain America suit, with a faded white star and the stripes making up the majority of the pattern. Steve wasn’t sure when he’d picked it up to wear himself – but it was too late to change it now.

Even if the irony was very strong.

He had to focus on what he needed to do. Picking up the backpack that he’d bought especially for this moment, he rifled through it. He had his notebooks, his pens, his laptop just in case (he didn’t think that he’d end up using it, but Bucky had been adamant that plenty of students used them in class and that he should bring it with him). A water bottle, a snack… yep, that was pretty much everything he was going to need today.

Then he checked his watch. Oh crap, it was already eight – he needed to actually leave.

Steve hurried out of the door, distractions pushed as far away from his mind as he could manage to (and given that most of them involved Bucky, it was difficult).

The streets were busier than he would have anticipated at this time of the morning. He had to set off super early, since his first introductory lecture was at 8am - something which didn't bother him, but he could only imagine would infuriate the teenagers that were bound to be in his classes. He had to dodge and weave through the crowds, using his long legs to his advantage.

The subway was just as bad. Seriously, it was so cramped in here that Steve wondered whether anyone had actually thought that maybe shoving so many people into a metal tube was a good idea. At least he was tall enough to get over the main part of the squeeze. Others weren’t so lucky – he could see plenty of shorter people looking distinctly uncomfortable as they were shoved into corners and up against the windows.

Steve honestly didn’t think that he really felt like he could breathe until he exited the subway.

To celebrate, he took in a deep lungful of city air. It wasn’t the cleanest stuff around, but it was a damn sight better than the muggy stuff from in there.

Then he realized that, as he stood around, he was effectively just wasting time, procrastinating so that he wouldn’t have to get to class.

He swallowed heavily.

And began to walk in the direction of his college.

Things were quiet for a while. The more he walked, the less he paid attention to what was going on around him. The musing of people as they spoke on their phones wasn't important to him right now - not when he was too busy worrying about his own problems.

On the whole, it was probably a bad move on his part.

He bumped into someone who had stopped in the middle of the street. “I’m sorry -“

The woman didn’t react at all.

Then he noticed that she was staring at something in the distance, her mouth gaping and her eyes blown wide.

A bad feeling began to brew inside him, like a stone dropping into his gut.

He looked up, following her eyeline.

There, in the sky, in the last place he would have expected, there was a collection of aliens pouring in through a hole. It was a familiar sight – the same thing had happened only last year, and everyone in the world had known about it.

Silence fell over the street.

Every car in the road slowed to a halt, their drivers’ attention no longer on their destination.

Then one person screamed. One long, high, chilling note.

It broke the spell – and opened the gateway for the rest of the city to panic too. A rush of movement surged towards him, the frantic cries of those who knew what was coming for them emanating from every side.

For a moment longer, Steve stood frozen, conflicted. His phone had remained silent – there was no sign that Shield wanted him to take care of it in any way, despite how close he was to the disaster zone.

He looked up. There was no sign of the fancy quinjet that flew the Avengers around. No sign that they were around at all.

Maybe he’d forsaken any chance of doing this again – even if he wanted to – long ago.

But he couldn’t in good conscience allow this to go on without doing something.

He dropped his bag.

With great difficulty, he began to run against the flow. Many of the people around had fled already, but there were hundreds more pushing their way down from blocks further on, and their force was strong.

Getting up enough momentum to actually run, he managed to force his way through. Sometimes his view of the situation was covered by the people running past him, but he was able to keep it in his sight for the most part. There seemed to be a never-ending supply of the aliens that were pouring out of it – Steve wasn’t entirely sure how the city wasn’t overrun with them yet.

The closer he got to the epicenter, the more destruction he saw. Somehow there was no sign of the invaders themselves – but their path through the city was clear. Buildings had chunks taken out of them, and many of the cars that had been abandoned on the street were crushed, dented, had their doors ripped clean off.

As he ran, Steve wondered what he was doing, thinking that he could take on all these aliens by himself, with no shield.

A woman ran past him. Blood dripped down from her head and nose. Her mouth was wide open in panic. She clutched the hand of a small child, dragging him along beside her. Tears were streaming down his reddened face, but his mother seemed to have no time to wipe them away.

Determination steeled itself in him.

This is what he did this for.

Strength, the kind that filled him during his battles before, welled up inside him. It propelled him to run faster, to try harder to reach the intruders before they could hurt anyone else.

A screeching metallic noise assaulted his ears from behind – but before he could turn, or do anything, he was knocked to the ground by a force that rushed by him. Using that momentum and rolling to his feet, he stood – and was faced with one of the ugly bastards that had come in through the portal.

They really were even uglier up close, Steve thought.

Then it raised its blaster, and Steve ducked instinctively. He felt the heat from the blast shoot over the top of his head, singing a few hairs. After, the sound of rubble falling came – a sign that the blast had hit something (just hopefully not some _one_ ). These things were dangerous – possibly their weapons, more than themselves, though.

Taking a chance, Steve stood up. He didn’t know whether the blaster needed time to recharge – there was no time for worrying about that. Leaping forward, he grabbed the weapon with both hands, attempting to pry it away from its owner.

The alien put up a good fight, hissing and growling at him the entire time – but Steve was gratified to find that he still had the upper hand. Bracing his feet against the metal of his hover-scooter-thing, Steve wrenched it off him and promptly hit him over the head with it.

The thing was knocked out immediately. For a moment Steve looked at the blaster in his hands, and thought about trying to kill its owner with it. But there seemed to be no obvious way to operate it, and Steve didn’t fancy trying his luck when he had approximately 8489389437 other aliens to kill.

Instead, he settled for breaking the damn thing, bashing it against the hover-scooter until the light on its side died.

Throwing it aside, Steve began to run again. He wasn’t sure why this lone alien had decided to attack when its brethren were nowhere in sight, but he didn’t think the answer would be anything good.

Turning the corner, he felt a strong wind begin to blow past him. It wasn’t enough to blow him away, or make him change courses – but it was there, enough to make him wonder whether everything was okay.

Then he saw the _pile_ of aliens that had formed, who were wreaking as much havoc as they could. He could also see the hole that they were coming in through – and it was at this moment that Steve realized that this was what was causing the wind. The atmosphere was literally being sucked away into space.

He didn’t know which thing was worse for the city.

Throwing himself into the fight, Steve lost himself to the familiar sensation of mind-numbingly trying to get rid of as many of the enemy as possible. Even without any real weapons, his fists remembered what to do, and he soon found himself surrounded by aliens, some dead on the floor and plenty more ready to fight.

There was nothing to focus on but for them.

There was no time to think about anything else, no room in his brain to fit in any other worries. Just keeping his breathing as steady as possible, and trying to ignore the slowly growing pain in his hands and forearms.

As they kept coming for him, Steve had a growing realization that he was never going to be able to fight every single one of them. As he swung around to land a hit on the back of another alien, he noticed several of them scaling a building on the other side of the block. Glancing around, he noticed that this was also the case on other buildings on the street.

But he couldn’t be everywhere at once.

Frustrated, he looked from alien to alien. He would be able to scale one of the buildings – but he wouldn’t be able to go up all of them, nor would he have time to get up and down every single one of them by the time the aliens managed to do whatever it was they were going to do.

Nevertheless, he would still have time to make some difference. Launching himself at the closest building which the aliens had chosen, he threw himself into climbing it before bad things could happen.

He was fortunate that said buildings had plenty of handholds in the form of windows, and were relatively easy to find purchase on. The propulsion he had was explosive to begin with, the momentum easy as he pulled himself up the wall. That didn’t last the whole time he was climbing though – that level of energy couldn’t be maintained forever. He slowed down slightly as he closed in on these creatures. They seemed to have noticed that he was on their tails (literally, he could see their tails from this angle), which only seemed to make them angrier. They actually seemed to slow down in order to attempt to threaten him – one of them pulled a chunk of building off and dropped it in his general direction. Swinging to the side, he narrowly avoided it colliding with his head, and watched as it fell to the ground and promptly smashed into smithereens.

He gulped.

While he’d been so focused on climbing, it hadn’t been clear exactly how high he’d climbed. It hadn’t even been something he’d considered – but looking down now, he found that a certain fear began to fill him. It had never been something that bothered him – growing up in a city had cured him of that fear at an early age – but ever since plummeting to (what he thought was) his death… well, perhaps he was less fond of it now.

Especially as the more he seemed to look down, the further away the ground seemed to be.

He turned back to the mission in front of him. The aliens had taken his momentary distraction as an opportunity to ascend even further, getting so far ahead of him as to be almost at the top of the building.

Hands beginning to hurt, being rubbed raw by the very coarseness that had been an advantage in the first place, he began to chase them as fast as he could. Even he was beginning to tire, using the same muscles over and over and not having even a moment to actually relax them. He had no choice but to continue though – when the other option was to fall again, he couldn’t afford to do anything other than reach the top.

Now that his climbing was slightly slower than it had been before, he kept getting flashing glances in the windows that he was using as his handholds as he passed by – something which provided a small amount of amusement. Most of the people inside seemed to have already noticed the aliens plaguing their area of the city, and of their own building, and seemed to already be panicking. That wasn’t the part that amused him – it was the way that they gaped as he passed by, seeming to not believe that a non-alien could be following them.

But he couldn’t afford to linger on that fact. It was the reason that he only caught glimpses of their horrified faces – and it reminded him that this was the reason that he was doing this. That it wasn’t just a matter of principle, it was a very literal and very real matter of protecting the people who lived in the city, on the planet.

The aliens disappeared over the top of the building. He watched as they did it – and he very much got the feeling that they were pleased to have escaped his watch for the time being.

Despite the fact that he was beginning to seriously tire, to feel like he really needed to stop soon, he did his best to speed up again. Somehow it gave him new strength, the ability to crawl up those last few meters and haul himself over the edge.

The first thing he realized, from the roof of this building, was that the gaping hole in the sky was further away than he thought. From the ground it had almost seemed like he was right underneath it. But from this position, he could see that there was a great deal of action going on a few more blocks over – he must just have got distracted by the dogpile going on on the street below.

It also became evident just how overrun the streets had become. From his pinholed point of view from before he’d not been able to see the fact that there were some of them flying about, making their destruction that way. There was no sign of the giant worms which had accompanied them the last time – and that made him nervous.

Still – he couldn’t afford to worry about that just yet, not when he had more pressing matters to attend to.

Somehow, there was a stash of blasters on the roof. Where they’d come from was unclear, but he knew that he had to change that situation.

As one of the aliens reached for a blaster, he took a deep breath and charged over. There were more than enough blasters there for them to be able to do serious damage several times over. (Not that he had any idea how they worked, but he knew that somehow they were able to cause plenty of destruction.)

Each of the aliens had a blaster now. It was unclear exactly what they were planning on doing with them – since they didn’t seem to be aware of his presence at all – but they needed to be stopped.

Perhaps leaping on them with his entire body wasn’t the best plan of attack, but it was the first one that came to mind.

The alien screeched as Steve’s weight fell on him. It must have been uncomfortable – and it wasn’t exactly any better for Steve, either. The blaster managed to dig in between every one of his ribs, somehow, and the alien was even bonier than it had seemed at first glance, digging its elbows in at what seemed to be every opportunity.

Steve began to wrestle with the alien for the gun. The thing was unwieldy, and slipped through his fingers every time he thought he was winning.

He could hear the other aliens doing something with their own blasters. The sounds they were making were odd – almost squelching, and Steve couldn’t figure out what they were doing.

Finally wrenching the blasted thing away from the alien, he used the technique that he’d been using before to dispatch the alien with its own blaster. The thing fell limply onto the ground, and Steve immediately stood back up, brandishing the blaster.

Without waiting around to see what the others aliens were doing, he went about doing his best to fight both of them. The blaster really did make an excellent club – their brains were bashed in easily, despite how hardy the aliens looked to be.

He had very little sympathy for them, even as he scrutinized their bodies. Not when they’d been doing their best to kill him too – but it wasn’t like he took any pleasure in it either.

Walking towards the edge of the opposite side of the building, Steve looked down as much as he dared. He didn’t particularly like being this close to falling, but it was necessary.

Out there, in amongst the swarm of aliens (whom he could see crowding the top of the buildings – he didn’t like the fact that they were doubling two to a hover-scooter, since some were getting picked up by their friends) there was a darker figure, a human one.

Steve’s first thought was that Loki was back. He wasn’t sure what the Avengers’ relationship with that other god was, but he thought that they were supposed to have locked him up after the last time. He couldn’t be sure that it was him, not from this height and distance – but he couldn’t think who else might have been colluding with these aliens again.

Either way, they clearly needed fighting. He could see them directing the aliens, although he wasn’t entirely sure how he was communicating with them.

Gingerly, he lowered himself to his knees, and shuffled down the building.

Somehow it was less scary this time – perhaps because this time he was going closer to the ground, his chances of being killed by falling lessening with every step down.

The closer he got to the ground, the more he could hear what was going on. The chatter of the aliens, the barking orders of their human leader – he got more and more sure that he knew what was going on. He couldn’t quite work out what the man was saying, but it sounded serious.

Reflexively, he looked around to see if there was any kind of backup yet. But they were the only two humans in sight – everyone else was either hiding or evacuated, and the Avengers still weren’t here. Interesting, since several of them were based in New York.

Well, if no-one else was going to help him, he’d just have to do it himself. Wiping some of the blood off his face (when had he hurt his nose enough to make it bleed? He must have not been paying attention when it happened), he stretched a little, preparing to fight again. There were scratches up and down his arms, nothing serious, nothing that he couldn’t deal with.

Straightening up, he began to march over to the still-unidentified figure.

The closer he got to the other man, the more he could see of him. A dark suit – a distinct lack of horns, ruling out the possibility of it being Loki – and a cowl over his head, making it even more difficult to identify him.

Especially since the man was facing away from him, only his upper body visible. His shoulders were broad, but hunched over, as though he had no interest in using the strength that he clearly had.

A bad feeling gathered in his stomach.

There was a flash of red by the man’s side.

It couldn’t be, though.

It had to be –

The man turned around, and Steve’s heart jumped into his mouth. His steps faltered; he didn’t have the ability to process this and keep going.

If that really was Captain America stood there, then… then…

Then that meant he’d been _right_.

Unless he was misreading this situation and Captain America was fighting them. It wasn’t impossible that he actually was still the good guy, especially since Bucky had spent the last few months making sure that Steve was caught up on all the good stuff the guy had done.

He couldn’t stay deliberating though.

There was an alien nearby, and he took the opportunity to take it down – but his heart wasn’t in it. It was quick and easy, and barely took any effort. He kept his eyes trained on the figure as best as he could – but there were too many aliens around, moving too quickly; it was too difficult to make a judgement call from this angle.

Somehow he had made it this far without Eric seeing him. Steve wasn’t sure how that was possible – but as he listened to Eric talk to the aliens, he thought it seemed that he was very, very preoccupied.

But it didn’t seem that he was doing any actual fighting, despite the shield at his side.

Continuing on his journey towards the epicenter, the winds that he’d noticed earlier became stronger. Still not enough to be serious, but enough to make it difficult to hear what was going on with the other man.

At least, until he got closer.

“…and take out that building too, they short-changed me once and I hated it.” His voice was harsh, deep, and full of hatred. Admittedly, he wasn’t invoking a particularly big grievance, but the fact that he was ruining the city over it was a bad thing.

“Hey!” Steve shouted over the winds. “What are you doing?”

He refused to fight him if there was even a chance that he wasn’t actually bad, somehow.

The man span around. Steve had expected to see even a modicum of surprise, or guilt, or something that would corroborate Bucky’s insistence that this Captain America was a good man.

There was none though.

Something like glee filled Eric’s expression. “What are you doing here?” For a second, Steve thought that maybe the guy recognized him from the time they met, that it was something personal. Then he added, “I thought that all the civilians got out of here ages ago. That’s okay though, I could deal with killing someone.”

Before Steve knew it, Eric was stalking towards him. It was so different from any other time that Steve had seen him – even with the bad feelings he got about him, it had never been quite so bad.

He had never looked so overtly _evil_.

Captain America hit him round the face.

Even with what Steve had just found out, he stood frozen. It didn’t even occur to him to defend himself.

Eric got another hit in before Steve thought to at least lift an arm to block him. Already his eye was smarting – he hadn’t done a very good job of convincing him to not do anything bad.

“What are you doing?” Steve asked, fists up.

Eric grinned widely. It reminded Steve of the Red Skull – that madness, that urge to make as many people’s lives as miserable as he possibly could, the utter disdain for who he hurt or who got in his way. “I’m doing what I’ve always dreamed of doing.”

Before Steve could choke out a, “what?”, the other swung at him again, aiming for his head again. Steve ducked instinctively, heart pounding against his ribs in panic. He had always been happy to fight those that he saw doing the wrong thing. But this? Not fully realizing who the enemy was until it was almost too late? Steve had never messed up this badly.

He didn’t even have it in him to feel vindicated that he’d been right.

There was no time for that. Eric roared in frustration that Steve had evaded him, and came at him again.

Steve span around in an attempt to shake him off his trail – and found that there was a crowd not far away watching them. He blinked. When had they arrived? He’d thought that everyone had gotten away, had known that it would be a bad plan to stick around and risk being killed or injured by the aliens in their bid to destroy them.

Then he noticed that every single one of them had their phones out. He could see the lights emanating from some of them – the fight was being filmed.

Of course – with any major event, the people would record all of it.

As oddly uncomfortable as the feeling was, to know that he was a spectacle for others right now, he couldn’t help but be grateful for the evidence. Everyone would know Eric had done.

Then Eric swung at his head, and Steve was too slow and too distracted to block it fully.

Pain blossomed across his crown, only adding to what was already there. He was sure that he looked a right mess – he could _see_ the blood that had dripped down onto his shirt, probably permanently staining it.

Absently, he thought that he’d have to apologize to Bucky for ruining his shirt.

Eric’s face was set in a snarling frown, displeasure written all over him. “What’s wrong with you?” He asked, stalking closer, tense and clearly frustrated. “Why won’t you just _die_?”

His back was turned to the gathering swarms.

Perhaps he hadn’t noticed them, so caught up in what he was doing that he hadn’t thought to check for people seeing his actions.

Or perhaps he didn’t care anymore.

“You’ll have to try harder than that,” Steve said, panting. He really was out of practice for this, he thought to himself – he hadn’t expected to be out of breath so quickly.

Eric frowned harder. “Challenge accepted.”

This time, he reached down and grabbed his shield, which so far had gone mostly unused.

What came next was a disconcerting dance, where Steve didn’t know _how_ to attack. He’d used his own shield as an offensive weapon plenty of times, but he’d never had to defend himself against it, no matter how familiar he was with its use. Somehow Eric managed to use it completely differently to how he had, using the edge much more often as a way of attempting to cut Steve up.

Each time he was surprised that it didn’t hurt as much as he was expecting – the edge less sharp than he remembered, with less bite to it.

Maybe Eric just wasn’t as adept at using it this way.

Then, as Eric gave it a particularly weak swing, Steve managed to catch it on the way to scratching up his chest. The metal was… not as cool as he would have expected it to be, and didn’t hurt his hand at all, not so much as drawing blood.

Steve frowned, and tugged it out of the other’s hand with ease. What….?

The shield was made of plastic. That much was obvious from the moment that he held it in both hands. He could feel it flex under his grip, feel how it vibrated like crazy when he tapped it on the ground.

What kind of mockery was this?

“How did you ever fight with this?” Steve asked in astonishment. He didn’t even bother using it as a weapon himself, like Eric seemed to have anticipated, throwing it far away from them in disgust. (He saw one of the aliens swoop down and pick it up a second later, which almost certainly wasn’t good, but he didn’t have time to worry about that with an angry superhero in front of him.

He was about to go in for the attack – Eric was about as injured as he was, and in the absence of any immediate orders the aliens seemed to have dispersed (where to Steve wasn’t sure, but they weren’t many around, at least) – when someone from the gathered crowd shouted out at them.

“Get him, Cap!”

For a moment Steve thought that they were talking to him.

And then, realizing that their audience had no idea that their Captain America was on the side of those attacking the city – nor would they be likely to recognize Steve as he was.

He gulped.

Even when Eric was literally showing his true colors – ones which didn’t at all match the ones that he was wearing – he still had the support of the people. Maybe Fury had been right, maybe the people weren’t ready to have more than one Captain America.

Eric twirled around to face his audience. In the brief second that Steve saw his face before he turned, it was characterized by surprise – perhaps Steve’s initial assessment of him simply not noticing that they were there had been right.

For a moment, Eric simply seemed to watch them. The screams that came from the audience at the simple fact that he was looking at them were indicative of the fact that the guy was popular with them. Something which Steve found himself incredibly jealous of.

Okay, so maybe that part hadn’t been entirely in his head.

(“….I love you Captain America!” “Will you sign my boobs?” “Marry me!”)

It was clear that his adoring public loved him.

Then two things happened simultaneously, and instead of simply freezing his blood, it felt like it all drained out of him at once, leaving him a hollow husk.

Bucky pushed his way to the front of the crowd. His face was pale and drawn, and his hair was sweaty, as though he had run all the way here. His phone was clutched in his hand tightly – and even from this distance, Steve could see the way that his knuckles were turning white as they tightened.

Eric, the one whom Steve had seen through right from the beginning, the one whom he had felt never deserved this position, shouted, “hail hydra!”

Silence fell over the whole block.

One or two people from the crowd laughed nervously – like they thought that there was some kind of joke, or an act that would stop any minute now.

Steve half expected to feel surprise. Any kind of emotion that would show how little he’d anticipated this. But he couldn’t. He was out of fucks for the day, unable to bring himself to be the slightest bit shocked at this revelation. Sure, he hadn’t expected for It to be this bad, but neither was this such a step up from what Steve had already caught him doing.

In fact, this was pretty much exactly what Steve would expect a member of hydra to be doing.

“Die Nazi scum!”

His war cry seemed to break the silencing spell on the crowd.

He raced forward, much less gracefully than he would have liked, and hit Eric around the head as hard as he could bring himself to.

The confused, low screaming coming from the crowd was muffled by the sound of roaring jets.

Steve looked up – and thought to himself that the Avengers were a little late to the party. He wiped some of the blood away from his eyes and mouth, hoping that he wouldn’t be making a bad impression on meeting them. He and one of their best friends had just beaten the shit out of each other, after all.

“Steve?!”

Attention drawn back to the crowd, Steve tore his eyes away from the plane (and the hole in the sky that was still above them).

Bucky was looking directly at him. If Steve had thought that he looked horrified before, then he couldn’t even have imagined Bucky’s current expression of existential dread, like his whole world had just come crashing down around him.

And, in a way, Steve supposed that it had.

He tried to make his hair not look like he’d soaked it in blood. “Bucky – babe,” he said, taking a few steps forward, past the prone body of Eric on the floor. “I can explain –“

“Who are you?” Bucky whispered it, but somehow the words were louder than anything else in the area. “you’re not…”

Steve gulped. There was no hiding it now. No going back. He’d made his bed, and now he had to lie in it.

“I’m Captain America.”

The words felt odd in his mouth. Nice – but not something he was used to any more.

Whispers came from the crowd after a moment. Of course, that fact couldn’t have only been heard by Bucky – it had to be heard by the entire world, by everyone who was streaming the fight.

Bucky’s lips began to tremble. “But you – you’re…”

Steve could only nod shamefully.

He was well aware that he probably looked nothing like the images of him as Captain America that the public were familiar with. Despite the fact that he probably spent more time like this than he spent being dolled up for the camera, that wouldn’t matter if he couldn’t be recognized.

The sound of shuffling from behind Steve was drowned out by the sharp zooming sound of Iron Man coming into land. Steve had to turn away from Bucky with a heavy heart, his boyfriend’s stricken face seared into the forefront of his brain.

“What’s been going on here?” Tony Stark’s electronic voice filtered to them through speakers. He sounded confused – and Steve couldn’t blame him in the slightest.

The suit was even more impressive up close. Steve had never had the opportunity to see it up close before, and he had to admit, he could see why people liked him so much. To see such a feat of engineering, one which allowed a man to fly, and be protected as he fought… Steve couldn’t begrudge them any amount of respect, no matter his feelings on Eric.

He could see the other Avengers piling out of their ship too – Iron Man had just been the first one to make it down to them.

Eric was awake, and seemed to be trying to get back on his feet. Steve could see the way that his legs were threatening to buckle underneath him – and he almost caught himself feeling sorry for the guy.

“Eric? Are you okay?” Iron Man reached out an iron hand and helped him to his feet.

Steve winced. The pain that the Nazi was clearly feeling wasn’t what made him uncomfortable – it was the fact that he was about to have to explain to the man’s friends what was going on here, and hope that he was going to believe him.

“Fuck you,” Eric spat. Literally spat – globules of spittle specked with blood flew from his mouth as he spoke.

Steve watched as Iron Man visibly recoiled.

_“What?”_

Eric wiped his mouth, smearing blood over his face. Somehow that only served to add an extra layer of savagery to his look – made him seem more wild as he bared his teeth at them.

“Steve?”

Steve whirled around, not expecting to hear Bucky’s voice to close behind him. His voice was as thin and feeble as he looked, and all Steve wanted to do was to take him over to the crowd, back to safety.

“I’m sorry, who is this?” Stark asked. “Can we focus on what’s going on here? Eric, what are you doing?”

Steve swallowed. “Babe, you should stay safe,” he said, pushing him slightly in the direction of the crowd and ignoring Stark’s questions for now.

(The sound of Eric panting harshly took away from the moment slightly.)

“I still don’t know what’s going on either,” Bucky said, his voice rasping, “but I know I don’t want to leave you behind either.”

Steve touched his arm again. This time he noticed the way that his touch left behind a smear of blood on Bucky’s skin. That didn’t make Steve feel any better about things.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve saw Stark flip up his visor and reach out to touch Eric in a way which mirrored the way Steve had reached for Bucky.

Unlike Bucky though, Eric didn’t look very happy about it. He knocked Stark’s arm away from him – and suddenly Steve’s attention was brought fully away from Bucky and towards the other two.

“So this is your boyfriend, huh?” The way that Eric said it made it sound like a bad thing.

Stark looked confused. Steve definitely felt confused – and he nodded slowly.

Eric pulled something small out of a pocket that Steve hadn’t noticed before now. “All of you have taken this good thing away from me – and so I’ll take a good thing away from you.”

Too late, Steve realized that Eric had lunged for Bucky. He reached out to try to pull him away – but they’d vanished.

Bucky and Eric had disappeared into thin air.

They were gone.

Steve stared at the spot that Bucky had been in. As though if he just looked hard enough, Bucky would appear.

“Okay, what just happened?” Stark. still sounded just as confused.

It was at this moment that Steve began to feel angry. “If you’d turned up when you were supposed to this wouldn’t have happened,” he muttered. “He got away with this because of you.” He looked up at tony.

“Got away with _what_?” Stark’s tone matched Steve’s in its frustration. “I still don’t know what went on here!”

Steve shook his head. “You should have known,” he said scathingly. “Your _pal_ is only a member of hydra.”

Stark’s mouth opened and closed a few times. Steve stayed looking at him the whole time, one eyebrow raised.

Then Steve registered that the winds from before had stopped bothering him. Looking upwards, he noticed that the sky had closed over – leaving all of the aliens trapped inside, in their world. Steve wasn’t so sure that he liked that.

“You’d better come with me.” Stark motioned for Steve to follow, and he began to fly away. (Steve got the feeling that he was showing off a little.)

As they walked in the direction of the quinjet, Steve had two things on his mind. Firstly, that he could see the other Avengers taking care of the rest of the aliens in the city. That was good; he’d totally neglected to have any chance to fight any more of them after Eric had made it clear that he was responsible for all of this. The second was intense worry over the current whereabouts of his boyfriend. He didn’t even how what Eric had used to transport them; and he didn’t know enough about the man to be able to guess where they might have gone.

Behind him, he could hear the crowd begin to disperse. The main show was over, the fighting was done, and they weren’t interested any more. If he’d wanted to he could have listened in on what they were talking about – but he didn’t have the energy.

What did any of that matter, when his boyfriend had been kidnapped?

With no apparent prompting, a door opened in the side of the jet. Stark flew up the steps, bypassing them entirely and leaving Steve to navigate his path to the steps himself. It was littered with debris, making that a little more difficult than perhaps Stark had realized (there was a certain amount that he had to actually jump over, with no room to go around it).

It was, as he finally walked up those steps and got a good look at the billion-dollar jet, that he realized just how much money Shield, and Fury, had been willing to throw at the Avengers. Not that he hadn’t known that fact already, that Shield had spent the minimum amount on him in order to get him out of the way, but it was something entirely different to see it realized.

Everything _looked_ expensive. Everything shone, looked high-tech, looked like it got cleaned within an inch of its life every day.

There was a mirror attached to the wall. Steve noticed it, and wondered why it was necessary to have one there, in such a functional machine.

Then he caught sight of himself in it, and did a double take. Suddenly questions of why it was there was irrelevant – all he could think about was what he _looked_ like. Overwhelmingly bruised. That was what first came to mind.

His face was practically _blue_ , smeared with dark red from the drying blood laying on top of them. He hadn’t even realized that he had numerous small cuts on his face – that pain had simply blended in with the rest of it.

It was possibly the most colorful his face had been, ever. Even his hair was streaked with red, matted down as it was, the color standing out against the light color of his hair.

He couldn’t deny that his eyes were drawn to the look. It occurred to him that he should probably clean that up, but he just didn’t have the energy.

From behind him, he heard the sounds of others coming up the stairs behind him. “Do you think Eric will come back? I didn’t see what Tony was doing with them, but –“

The talking stopped abruptly. Steve turned to see the Black Widow and Hawkeye stood there, staring at him. He swallowed, and tried to smile. It came out awkwardly – somehow even his mouth hurt.

“Excuse me,” Black Widow said, walking in his direction.

Steve practically flattened himself against the wall to let her pass. Usually there were few people that he was genuinely scared of – and Black Widow was one of those people that he just couldn’t get a good read of.

She gave him a good glaring at as she passed him. It didn’t seem overtly hostile – more like she couldn’t figure him out either, and was unafraid to let him know that she’d fight him if she needed to. Steve could respect that.

Hawkeye seemed a little more comfortable. Even as he could hear Stark and Black Widow begin to talk in hushed voices, the door hatch closed up, and Hawkeye set his bow down on a ledge near the door.

“So you’re the guy who’s claiming to be Captain America, huh?” He asked. His demeanor was fairly non-aggressive, coming across as much less threatening when he wasn’t holding a weapon any more – yet the words held a certain amount of threat, a certain amount of disbelief in what Steve had been saying.

“I –“ How was he even meant to explain the situation? Hawkeye didn’t seem to be waiting for a response so much as pleasantly waiting to see what reaction Steve was going to have. “I don’t think claiming to be is the right way to word it,” he settled on. “I was Captain America first. That’s just the truth of it.”

Hawkeye blinked. “I guess that’s true. I’m just used to thinking of Eric as Cap.”

Steve sighed. “I know. I think that’s just going to be my downfall from now on.”

This riveting conversation didn’t seem to make Hawkeye feel the need to stick around – and he went to join the others at the front of the plane. This might have been a bad thing, but really Steve knew that he couldn’t force these people to be his friends. Nor was he sure he wanted them to be.

Iron Man made his way back down the corridor. He was out of his suit, back in civilian clothing – and it was now that his similarities with his father really set in for Steve. He’d known already that Tony was Howard’s son, but it had always been in the abstract, something which didn’t color his understanding of Tony. It didn’t seem like the men were that alike, other than their love of science – although all Steve knew of him was his public persona, so perhaps there would be more of him in tony than Steve knew.

For a moment he wondered who was flying the plane – and then he caught sight of Black Widow at the controls, headset on and looking like she knew what she was doing.

“Come with me,” Stark said, turning around and beckoning for Steve to follow him further into the plane. It wasn’t like there was very far for them to go, but Steve did it anyway, ducking his head slightly.

He was even more aware, now that Stark was back in his ‘normal’ clothes (it was a suit, and Steve didn’t understand why he needed to look formal when they were on their way back from a mission. Rich people lived an entirely different life, truly), that his own clothes had been pretty much ruined by the fight. He’d not put much thought into it before, but now that he was stood next to someone who was mostly clean, the differences were all the more stark.

They sat down in the seats, across from one another. Hawkeye went to sit with Black Widow. Steve was sure that the idea was to give the two of them some privacy to talk in, but there was no way that they weren’t being listened in on. Steve didn’t trust them not to in the slightest – and it was exactly what he would have done, too.

“So, you say you’re Captain America.” Stark leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. He frowned a little – it seemed as though Stark was about as unhappy about the way the events of the past hour had gone as Steve was.

Steve sat up a little straighter. “Yes,” he said, fighting the urge to try to impress Stark by calling him ‘sir’.

Stark narrowed his eyes at Steve. “And why should I believe you?” He asked, sounding even more suspicious than he had before. “All I know is that you came along, and – and something _happened_ to my best friend which made him turn into a dick, and disappear.”

Steve swallowed. “I just am,” he said, thinking that all of this needing to prove his identity stuff was nonsense. Why were they wasting time on this when they could be finding Bucky? They’d all just seen a man disappear into thin air, been kidnapped by a madman, and this was Stark’s priorities?

Stark sighed, short and frustrated. “Look, I let you onto my plane, I’ve not detained you, and I’ve no intention of interrogating you, although I think I’d have the right to. I think the least I deserve is some kind of proof that you’re not about to – about to, I don’t know, try to blow this plane up, or jump out of here to escape.”

Those were all valid points. But Steve still couldn’t bring himself to care that much about it – it still didn’t seem like a worthwhile use of his time. “I know,” he said, trying to keep his irritation out of his voice as much as possible, “but don’t you think that searching for your Nazi friend would be a better use of your time?”

Stark stopped short. Literally, he froze. “My what?” He asked, incredulous.

Steve blinked. “Your Nazi friend? The current Captain America, who infected the earth with aliens and proved his allegiance to hydra?”

“Hydra? Should that sound familiar to me?” Stark sounded genuinely confused, and Steve’s irritation began to metamorphose into panic. This would be much more difficult if he had to explain everything to Stark.

“I’m going to have to start from the beginning, aren’t I?” Steve asked. He did his best to push his worries about Bucky to the back of his mind for now. Clearly he wasn’t going to get to do anything about it for the time being, at least not until Stark understood exactly what was going on.

Stark nodded, beginning to chew at his lip.

“My name is Steve Rogers.” (Steve figured he really may as well start from the _beginning_.) “I was born in 1918. When the second world war broke out, I wanted to join up, but I wasn’t able to due to being unfit for service. I was enhanced with a supersoldier serum and became Captain America, the first one, and after some time of fighting the Nazis – mostly hydra, the same organization that the current Captain America is a part of – I ended up frozen in ice. And that’s how I’m here, as young as I ever was.”

At some point during Steve’s speech, some amount of comprehension had dawned on Stark’s face. “I – I think I know what you’re talking about,” he said. “But not from school. I never really paid much attention in history class, but my dad talked about you sometimes. Usually whenever Eric was on tv. He usually got mad at them for – for not being you, or something. He was usually drunk when he did it though.” He looked at his knees.

“I still don’t understand why you’re – why you’re not Cap, then,” Stark added. “I mean, wouldn’t that have made international headlines?”

Steve shrugged, the uncomfortable memory of Fury telling him that he didn’t want for Steve to be any kind of fighter for shield coming to mind. “I don’t know,” he said. “All I know is that they didn’t want me to fight. Fury said it would be too confusing to have two Captain Americas, so they just hid me away and didn’t say anything about it.” He snorted, mostly to himself. “And look where it got him.”

Stark looked almost shocked at this. “But – surely this makes no sense,” he said, leaning back in his seat, looking off to the side. “Isn’t the whole point of the Avengers to gather the people who can defend the earth the best? Wouldn’t it make more sense to have you on the team?”

“I think it would,” Steve was quick to say. “But I didn’t get a say in it.”

He left out the part where he didn’t know if he would have picked up the shield again if he’d been asked to. If he’d decided not to fight today he could have been in an art class, blissfully unaware of any shady dealings going on under Fury’s nose.

Then a thought hit him.

“Stark… what if Fury was –“

Stark held up a finger to silence him – his phone had begun to ring. It was shrill in the otherwise monotone roaring of the jet, and Steve felt its ominous tone surround them.

Steve stayed quiet as Stark answered the phone, thinking that it might be something to do with his business, something that he would have no idea.

But Stark said very little, mostly nodding and making sounds of agreement with whoever was on the other line. It seemed like it was making him more and more tense, that something was almost… scaring him.

Steve tried to not let it get to him. Tried to reassure himself that whatever it was, it wasn’t scary, and he wouldn’t have to worry about it.

By the time Stark finished the call – which was only short – Steve’s heart had begun to race, as though there was something very wrong with what was going on.

Stark swallowed heavily. “So that was Director Fury’s assistant on the phone,” he said. “I – I can’t believe it.” Stark unbuckled his seatbelt, and stumbled along to the cockpit. Steve was left gaping after him – what could possibly have gone on in that phone call to scare Stark so much?

Steve watched as Stark began to talk to the two others. A certain amount of panic began to build up in him – watching three other superheroes getting scared over something only made him think that there was something very seriously wrong.

It took a minute before Stark even went to look at him. Somehow he looked even more scared than he had before, and in some ways Steve thought that it resembled the drawn way that Bucky had looked at him down on the battlefield.

As Stark began to walk over to him, with every step Steve’s heart drew tighter and tighter in his chest.

“So I just found out that Shield has become overrun with hydra agents.” Stark’s voice rasped. “Fury – Fury is dead. Or disappeared, we aren’t sure. But – Shield doesn’t exist anymore. I just had one of our agents call me to say that so many people that we thought were our friends have turned out to be one of them.” He turned eyes that were simultaneously angry, sad and terrified onto Steve. “It’s all gone.”

Steve’s heart stuttered. He didn’t like Fury all that much, but that didn’t mean that he wanted anything bad to happen to him either.

Plus, if Shield didn’t exist, what was going to happen to the Avengers?

Not that it mattered that much to Steve, since he wasn’t a member of them… but it would still be important for the people he was apparently allying himself with.

Time to try to be a rock for the rest of them to lean on, apparently.

He straightened up again, trying to recapture some of his old captain days in the way he spoke to them. “Well, we’re going to your tower, right?” Stark nodded. “Good, so we can decide what to do from there. If you have plenty of your own resources, then it should be easy for us to make a plan, and undo all the harm that your captain has done.”

Stark nodded, his eyes a little blanker than Steve would have liked. He wasn’t sure whether he was actually listening to him, but he hoped that at least some of it had sunk in.

As they sat waiting for the plane to take them to wherever they were going, Steve began to imagine the sorts of things that might be going on in his absence. Torture of Bucky. Hydra overrunning the Shield building. Many people killed. The aliens extending their attack on the city, taking over the whole world.

It was torturous to think about.

Somehow, Steve was surprised that it didn’t take them that long to reach Stark tower. He got the feeling that perhaps they’d been circling the city for a while, while Stark was busy making sure he wasn’t going to flip and kill them all – but he wasn’t about to call them out on it, not when he was relying on them to not turn on _him_.

Knee bouncing, Steve watched as best as he could through the front window as the shiny ginormity of Stark tower came closer and closer. By now it had definitely been rebranded as Avengers tower – but Steve couldn’t help but think of it as something that Stark very much was still the owner of. At least, he’d never heard Fury say anything about being able to control things that happened in the Avengers tower, despite the fact that all of the Avengers seemed to be based there.

Thankfully, the landing was very soft. Steve had had a great deal of experience with being flown by the best pilots that Fury would provide him with – and yet somehow Black Widow had managed to land the plane so much better than any of them. Perhaps that wasn’t so surprising – clearly the Black Widow was a very capable woman, probably more capable than a lot of the others that shield employed.

The other three clearly had a routine down. As Black Widow went about turning everything off, involving many switches and a written checklist, Stark and Hawkeye began to collect bits of gear that were stashed around the plane. Steve hadn’t realized just how much was on board with them – or how much apparently needed to be removed before they left.

Three bows and ten guns later, they seemed to be ready to leave. The plane had sat, cooling on the helipad, for a good few minutes, and all the while Steve had simply sat there, having nothing to do and nothing to bring with him. Everything he owned was either in his pockets, the bag which he had dropped in that alleyway, or his apartment.

Steve stepped up, following the others as they began to step out of the plane.

As he took his first steps onto Stark tower, he got the strange feeling that this should have happened a year ago. Like this is what should have been, and wasn’t.

Like it was making up for lost time.


	10. Chapter 7.5

“As the fourth in the long and prestigious line of Captain Americas, it was immediately apparent that Moore was going to have to try very hard to make a name for himself, to do something different from the rest. While Cooper had made his time as Captain iconic through being extremely popular, by the time he chose to retire, that popularity had died down somewhat, and the public perception was that he was a washed up almost celebrity, liked only by middle aged women who had begun to idolise him in their youth. This was no longer an accurate description for Moore, who was young and very different from Cooper.”  
Downe, H., _Defenders of America_ , (2012), p9

“Eric Moore began life as a perfect student, someone who was purported by all of his teachers to be very academic, interested in subjects like debate and English literature, excelling in persuasive writing. It was expected that after his finished college that he would go on to do something related to this, and it was a surprise to everyone when he chose to go into the military afterwards. There is much less information about this part of his life – the government has chosen to keep it a secret, citing security reasons – but some, like Dresden, have suggested that this is as a result of a good track record while in the military.”  
Owens, M., _A Change in the Public Perception of Captain America: Eric Moore, A True Hero_ , (2007), p12

“The decision to have a much more controlled time choosing Captain America much more reflected the choosing of Ronnie Acton, the second Captain America. This time the public was kept out of the loop for the most of it, and candidates were not allowed to put themselves forward for the job. The government held its criteria in a tight grip, and there were many weeks between the stepping down of cooper, and the announcement that Moore had been chosen.”  
Morgan, G., _Moore Captain America, Please_ , (2012), p24

“Unlike Cooper, Moore was a military man. It somewhat seemed that the government had realised that they needed more than an actor in order to actually attempt to protect the country, and it was revealed years later that this had been one of their criteria. In March of 2001 Moore was announced, someone who already had combat experience, and would be a good fit for the role of superhero. This was played up greatly – although it took a while for the promotion and general propaganda to sink through to the general public.

Particularly with the arrival of the internet, it was easy for people on various forums set up specifically for the subject to be extremely critical of the way in which Moore had been framed by the government as a hero.”  
Downe, H., _Defenders of America_ , (2012), p31

“As it turned out, it became clear within the first year of Moore’s appointment that it was a good thing that they had replaced Cooper. Perhaps it was the fact that Cooper had never been the best at the ‘appearing to be a soldier’ part, but once there was a new kid on the block, someone who actually knew how to fight, every villain that had perhaps been lying low came out of the woodwork. Some of them were attempted terrorists looking to do larger damage, but at points there were even people who were dedicating their time to attempting to thwart Moore specifically, targeting him at events and such. It was this that led to an increase in his security, an almost ridiculous thing to have to do for a superhero…”  
Owens, M., _A Change in the Public Perception of Captain America: Eric Moore, A True Hero_ , (2007), p43

“In a manner similar to Cooper’s rise to fame, Moore became very popular with the younger generation in a way that made the role of Captain America seem cool again. This time, however, perhaps as part of his military background, his popularity was not limited to young girls, managing to capture the attention of the older generations, as well as men in general. This has been described as impressive, as well as being the catalyst for superheroes being seen as trendy again.”  
Barnes, J. B., _Sexy Captain? A Discussion on the Worth and Popularity of Captain America, 1979-2011_ , (2011), p75

“It took a few years, but after a while other superheroes showed up too. It seemed odd that the trend took so long to take off, but it has been speculated that the government team ‘The Avengers’ was made in direct response to the fact that for years Moore had been dealing with these problems by himself. It was a fact that he had been getting more and more action fighting as Captain America, and although it was never directly acknowledged, it is probable that the government realised how difficult it must have been for him.”  
Morgan, G., _Moore Captain America, Please_ , (2012), p63

“Throughout his time being part of the Avengers team, the media dubbed Tony Stark and him the leaders of the group, being the ones that were paid the most attention to for most of the time. Whether this a good thing or not is unclear, but it has not stopped any of the other superheroes on the team from joining.”  
Downe, H., _Defenders of America_ , (2012), p67

“Moore has been known as the superhero who is the most willing to do publicity tours. While this could easily have turned into being a bad thing, and be far too similar to the way in which Cooper made use of the press to further his personal fame and be known for his own, other work, this has not been the case, and at almost every single turn the man has made it very clear that he has been doing all of this as Captain America, and not as Eric Moore.”  
Barnes, J. B., _Sexy Captain? A Discussion on the Worth and Popularity of Captain America, 1979-2011,_ (2011), p94

“Moore really took on the role of Captain America and embraced it, right from the start. It has been a stark contrast from the way in which Cooper viewed the role, wherein he did not think that it belonged to him, and was simply another part to play. Moore used this to his advantage, and was able to make the public almost forget that there was ever a time that he was not Captain America.”  
Downe, H., _Defenders of America,_ (2012), p58

“There are children alive today – and this is information straight from my students – who do not remember a time when Captain America was not someone to look up to as they were growing up. As far as they were concerned, Captain America became a thing in the early 2000s – even those who were into their teens at the time were barely aware that Captain America had been a thing before this time. It was this which helped him to become so popular, since so many of them had no prior preconceptions. It is almost certain that he has been the best and most popular captain.”  
Barnes, J. B., _Sexy Captain? A Discussion on the Worth and Popularity of Captain America, 1979-2011_ , (2011), p112


	11. Chapter 8

Steve was led over the helipad and to a sliding glass door. Looking back momentarily, he wondered how a plane was able to land on such a small place like a helipad. It seemed like technology that he didn’t understand – but then, that seemed to go for most of the things that Starktech turned out anyway.

It felt strange, in a way, to be at the back of the queue. Stark headed up the line of them – which only made sense, as it was his building. In the time it had taken for them to get here, he seemed to have recovered from his momentary inability to not panic, and even for his short size, Steve thought that he made a good leader.

Black Widow stalked as his right hand, clearly the second in command. For all the little research he’d done on the Avengers as a whole, it had seemed as though they, along with Captain America, were the leaders of the gang.

Although he’d known it before, having set foot in a very clean, very professional looking building only made it all the more obvious that right now he didn’t fit in. He couldn’t, not when he was covered in debris and blood, and looked nothing like a superhero.

The other three at least looked the part right now.

His glee at putting on an ironic Captain America t-shirt this morning had turned into actually sadness by now. What joy could be found when it was objectively a bad thing that he had had to take on the role once more?

It was only highlighted when, the moment that he stepped inside the building, there was a gun pointed in his direction. Steve had seen Stark use some sort of card to make the doors open – and, seemingly out of nowhere, there had appeared two guards. Steve had assumed that they were mostly there out of principle – but no, here he was being actively thought of as a threat.

His hands went up – but before anything bad could happen, Stark intervened. “Stand down. He’s with us.” He waved a hand so flippant that you could almost think that this was an everyday occurrence for him.

The guards gave him a suspicious look – but lowered their guns anyway. Steve sauntered a little faster, catching up with the black widow. “So where exactly are we headed?” He asked her.

She gave him a flat look. “We’re going to our meeting room,” she said, taking the stairs up two at a time. “We need to discuss our plan of action.”

“Yeah – these guys won’t know what hit them.” Steve jumped as Hawkeye piped up behind them.

Turning around, Steve noticed that the guy was grinning, as though he was unbothered by the situation. He didn’t want to admit it – but that sounded like exactly what he had thought the last time he fought the Nazis.

And apparently he hadn’t done as well as he’d thought he had.

He couldn’t let that dishearten him though.

“Yeah we will,” he said, trying to make it really sound like he believed it.

He couldn’t let his fear that he would never get Bucky back cloud his judgement. Not when he needed to believe that they would succeed.

It didn’t take very long to get to the aforementioned ‘meeting room’.

(The experience of being in an elevator with three people that he never would have expected to was quite something else. He knew he was the odd one out here, the one making the others making the others feel awkward. That didn’t mean he didn’t find it rather amusing though.)

The room was large, spacious, high ceilinged. It was a pleasant place to be – if the ostentatious pictures of all the members of the Avengers on the walls didn’t detract away from the serious aura of what they were doing here.

The three others quickly went about taking a seat. Only people who had pre-assigned seats could have sat so quickly – and it was very clear that they all knew what they were doing. Hovering for a moment, he wondered whether he should ask where he should sit.

That seemed silly though – when all the seats were the same, there was no reason to think that he couldn’t sit where he wanted. Stark had taken the seat at the head of the table, and so Steve took one next to him, so as to better take part in the conversation.

Stark seemed a little lost for words. They were all waiting for him to speak – even Steve knowing that whatever they decided, it would have to be vetoed by the man providing the ability to do the thing.

“Care to explain what went on out there?”

Black Widow was the one to break the silence. She was sat across from Steve – able to look him right in the eye, able to make him feel like he was the one who would solve at least some of their problems.

Stark seemed to relax a little. “yes, I think that would be best,” he said. “I told Natasha and Clint some of what you told me, but I think you should be the one to tell them about it.”

Steve swallowed.

It was difficult to put into words something that he desperately wished hadn’t happened, but somehow he managed it.

“So you meant to tell me that you, the original Captain America, have been out there for _a year_ , and Fury didn’t want any of us to know?” Hawkeye – Clint – sounded absolutely astounded.

Steve cringed. “Well when you say it like that, yeah, it does sound ridiculous,” he said. “I swear I didn’t want it to happen – I was ready to fight when the battel of New York happened – but Fury just didn’t think it would be a good idea.”

Natasha and Stark shared a look. “We could have done with you,” Natasha said. “What if your help had been crucial to any of our fights?”

“I – I had no choice though,” Steve said, squirming under her gaze.

“You didn’t _have_ to obey though, surely?” Natasha said, her judgmental face only increasing.

“Would you have disobeyed a direct order from the director?” Steve asked. There was little doubt in his mind that he would have been in a great deal of trouble had he gone against Fury’s wishes. “I thought that you guys were meant to be the best group of fighters anyway. What use would my help have done if you had a Captain America already?”

“But you’re a _supersoldier_ ,” Stark emphasized. “Eric is… was, strong, but he’s not enhanced in any way.”

“And clearly he wasn’t half as trustworthy as we thought he was,” Natasha added.

“I don’t know why you’re blaming this on me!” Steve exclaimed. “I don’t know what part of ‘it wasn’t my choice’ you’re not getting, but this was all on Fury. I didn’t choose to not join, he actively made sure that you didn’t know I existed. I made sure he _knew_ that I was ready to fight, if I needed to, and he _never_ wanted to have me help.”

That seemed to give them reason to pause. Even Natasha, the one who seemed most hell-bent on having the blame taken off of Fury, paused in her glaring.

“You’re right,” Stark finally said, nodding. “Fury played us all.”

“So what do we do about it?” Natasha asked.

They were silent for a moment, all thinking. “Go over the events of earlier?” Clint asked.

Steve repeated his story.

“Are you absolutely sure that he said hail hydra though?” Natasha seemed to have subconsciously leant forward while he was describing the actions of the other captain. “That’s actually what he said? You didn’t misunderstand, or mishear?”

Steve shook his head. “No, it was very clear.”

To the side, Stark had got out his phone. Steve thought that this was a little rude – they’d gathered here on his request, after all – but he couldn’t really say anything about it.

“And you’re absolutely sure that it was him controlling the aliens? You didn’t see Loki about anywhere? There wasn’t anyone controlling him in return, or anything like that?” Natasha asked more questions, prompting Steve to turn back to her. There had been some desperation in her voice – like she was searching for any excuse for it to not be true.

Steve really couldn’t blame her.

“No – I don’t think so, at least,” Steve said. “I can’t be sure, but he didn’t look like he was being controlled. And he was definitely directing the aliens – I heard him doing it.” He shrugged. “I didn’t see Loki though. I suppose he could have been around, but if he was, he wasn’t near me.” He did his best to cover all his bases as he spoke, but it might have just made him sound far too guilty.

Before Natasha could (probably) accuse him of being a spy for the other side, Stark spoke. “I’ve got video of it.” He turned his phone around so that the rest of them could see it. Even paused, Steve could see that the quality was terrible – but it was definitely the scene that he had seen earlier, just flipped from a different perspective.

He pressed play.

It played out pretty much exactly as Steve had remembered it. Eric shouted hail hydra, spat at them, generally looked deranged. The video cut off just as the quinjet landed, and Steve swallowed. Seeing Bucky on screen, just in front of the camera – it made Steve remember that he hadn’t even come to the scene _for_ Steve. He’d arrived just like any of the others that wanted to get a good look at what was destroying his city – only to find that his hero had gone mad, and his boyfriend was fighting him.

Somehow, this particular video had been close enough to capture what Steve hadn’t seen beforehand, before he knew that Bucky was there. That slow, horrified realization that things were not as they appeared to be, that Steve had been keeping this massive secret from him this whole time

It almost made him feel as bad as the realization that his successor was a Nazi had.

Or was it the other way around?

“He really went all in, huh?” Clint asked.

Natasha turned to look at him. “Not the time,” she said, almost scathing but for the obvious affection in her voice. She paused. “But yes, yes he did.”

“I guess we should be thankful that so many people filmed it,” Stark said, taking his phone back. “But you’re lucky, Rogers, you’ve been proved right.”

“So what do we do about it?” Natasha jumped in. “Eric has to be out there somewhere. We could trace him, maybe, or – or well, we know him well enough to maybe guess where he might have gone.”

Steve coughed. “Or maybe Shield’s servers has something about where he is.” When Stark looked at him with confusion, Steve elaborated. “Well if Shield is hydra – or, is partially hydra – it stands to reason that they would have some link to hydra files in there.”

When Stark simply stared at him, he began to wonder whether he’d completely misunderstood how tech like that worked. He did his best to understand these things as best as he could, but he had to admit that the details often slipped by him, and he was prone to thinking that things that couldn’t be done would be easy.

“I have to go,” Stark said finally. “I need to – yes, I’ll see what I can do.”

He stood up suddenly, marching out the room like he had dogs nipping at his heels. At first Steve assumed that this was something strange – he wasn’t exactly used to people simply leaving in the middle of meetings in order to do their own thing. But when Natasha and Clint didn’t act like anything was wrong, like this was totally normal, he realized that this must be something that Stark did often. Which, as he thought about it more, did actually make some amount of sense.

Natasha stood up too. “Well I’d better go prepare,” she said. Clint followed suit – and Steve realized that he was about to be left to his own devices.

“What shall I do?” He asked, suddenly almost afraid of being left alone in this big building.

Natasha shrugged. “I don’t know, I’m sure you’ll find something to do.” As she left the room, Clint followed her like an obedient puppy.

And Steve was left there, by himself, in a room he barely knew in a building he didn’t know.

As it turned out, the thing he ended up entertaining himself with was a café he found a few floors down. It was presumably for the employees of this place – but nobody asked for any kind of ID, and he found himself a quiet spot in the corner of the room to sip his lattes in.

Fortunately, he’d put his phone and wallet in his pockets before he ditched his bag earlier.

Unfortunately, this led to him being on his phone for the majority of the time that he was in here.

That might not have been a bad thing in itself – it was what the thing was for, after all – but every social media account he had was overrun with posts about today. It was impossible to get away from; it seemed like literally the entire country (maybe even the world) wanted to talk about it.

There were only so many times he could see himself before he got a little sick of it.

Still, it was interesting to see the competing opinions on what he had done.

_(‘omg who does this guy think he is?? Cap doesn’t deserve this’_

_‘did you hear what cap said? That’s actually insane’_

_‘I actually hate him, this asshole can suck my dick’_

_‘*heart eyes emoji* have you seen his ass? He could beat me up any day’_

_‘ok but why is he wearing a cap t-shirt? There’s no way that this wasn’t planned’_ )

To see people think that he’d in some way predicted this coming was somewhat disheartening. Especially since in some ways he _had_ considered that there was something wrong with the current Captain. Maybe there was something he could have done, some extra piece of evidence that he could have used to prove to Fury that he was in the right.

He saw these things swimming in front of him until he was practically sick of it.

Plus – the longer they went without doing something tangible to find Bucky, the more paranoid he got that something terrible might have happened, might be going on right now.

Words swimming before his eyes, he didn’t even register the fist few times his name was called. He was so unused to voices he didn’t know talking to him that it didn’t seem to be something that he had to pay attention to.

“Steve?”

It was Clint. Hawkeye. He’d changed out of his leather outfit from earlier – part of the reason that Steve hadn’t immediately recognized him as someone that might talk to him. Now he was in a soft hoodie and jeans – he could have been any one of the casually dressed employees that had come in and out of the café all afternoon.

“Oh – hello,” Steve said, trying not to seem too confused. “Can I help you?”

Casually, Clint sat down opposite him as though they’d been meant to be meeting here. Leaning forward, and in a low voice, he said, “okay, so since we need you here, and now that they’re hunting for you out there, we thought that you could stay here overnight.”

Steve blinked. “What do you mean they’re hunting for me?” He wasn’t able to take in any of the other information in there right now.

Now Clint was the one who was surprised. “Well you were seen beating up a government official,” he said. “Shield is a government operated operation. It might have been overtaken by hydra, but the rest of the government, and they’ve still got to stick by the rules.” He paused. “Plus a ton of Cap fans think that you’re some kind of imposter. I guess they couldn’t get a good look at you, because they don’t seem to have connected the dots at all.”

Well none of that sounded good. “Oh… you’re probably right then. I should stay here, shouldn’t I?”

Clint nodded. “Yeah, about that – we do have rooms here for everyone, but when Tony was organizing them, he didn’t really have much foresight about it, and so there aren’t any spare.” He looked uncomfortable.

Steve cocked his head to the side. “Okay, so?”

“Well pretty much all of us are here, nobody has a room to give up…” Clint said, as though he was trying to get Steve to understand something without explicitly saying it.

“It’s okay, I can crash wherever –“

“You’d have to stay in Eric’s room,” Clint blurted out. “I’m really sorry, but that’s the only option.” He bit his lip, looking up at Steve with genuine apologies in his eyes.

Steve sighed. “It’s okay,” he said. “I’ve slept in worse places.” He tried to smile, hoping that he would have able to convince Clint – and himself – that it wouldn’t be excruciating for him to do so.

Clint visibly relaxed, his shoulders slumping. “Thank god,” he said. He pulled a card out of his pocket, placing it on the table between them. “Here’s the key to get in. I doubt that Eric will be happy about you sleeping in his room, but I don’t think he’ll ever be back here again. I think Tony’s thinking about getting rid of his stuff as soon as possible, and – and you didn’t hear this from me, but I think he might give you the suite, if you want it.”

The key card stayed on the table. “Thank you,” Steve said. “I appreciate it. Tell Stark that I’m grateful.”

“I will,” Clint said, standing back up. “When you go into the elevator, Jarvis will direct you where you need to go. I hope it’s alright for you.”

“I’m sure it will be.” He wasn’t, but he couldn’t afford to say anything else. Not when these people had already been nicer to him than Fury had been in the entire time that Steve had known him. They had given him some place to stay, without asking for anything in return, and given him a chance to fight again.

A year ago he didn’t know whether he would have seen this as a good thing. But his hiatus from fighting at all seemed to have helped to reignite his willingness to fight – or maybe it was the addition of feeling like he had something worth fighting for again.

He ended up not sitting in that café for much longer after all. He had meant to – but once he realized just how late it was, and since it didn’t seem that anybody else was going to come here and talk to him, there didn’t seem to be much point in staying.

Standing up, and registering that in the last hour he had stiffened up somewhat, he walked to where he thought the elevator was. Despite the late hour, it seemed that there were still plenty of employees around. None of them paid him any mind – and that was just fine by him. He might have longed for some form of interaction for a while, but he no longer felt that need, and none of these people were interesting to him.

The elevator looked intimidating, even from the outside. He could absolutely believe that it held an ai inside it (even though technically the ai was all around them – Bucky had done his best to explain it before, but the rules surrounding it had always seemed a little too complicated and unworldly).

Pressing the up button, while only assuming that the personal suites were located upwards of where he was, he stood there waiting for the elevator with nothing to keep his mind off of what he had been mulling over for the past few hours.

The doors dinged open.

The elevator was blissfully empty, and he stepped in nervously.

Half expecting it to not work, he quietly said, “…Jarvis?”

“Hello, Captain Rogers.” The response was immediate, and the voice sounded entirely natural. He jerked a little as it came through invisible speakers, somehow expecting it sound more like it… it had been generated by a computer. “Shall I take you to your suite?”

Steve nodded, speechless, and then realized he should probably vocalize his affirmation. “Yes, please.”

“Of course.”

Without a single button being pushed, the elevator began to move. Leaning against the wall, he tried to relax, to believe that all of this was trustable.

And, as it turned out, it was. Just as though he had asked the elevator to take him to a specific floor, it slowed to a stop, and opened the door. This time, it opened to an empty corridor, a short one with a closed door parallel to the elevator.

“This is your floor, Captain.” The elevator doors had shut behind him already, but Jarvis’ voice came out of the walls anyway.

Walking up to the door, he noticed the key card scanner to the side of it. It didn’t feel like anything that should work, despite the fact that Shield’s headquarters had worked on exactly the same principle. Looking down at the key card that he was still clutching, he vaguely wondered to himself exactly how this technology worked.

Gingerly, he held the card up to the reader.

It beeped.

Trying the door handle, Steve was thankful when the door opened as he pushed.

The first thing that he noticed was that this was very clearly an occupied room. It was nothing like a hotel room, where it was clean, neat, blank in a way that made it easy for literally anyone to project whatever they liked onto it.

No, this one had personality, was used by someone who spent a great deal of time here.

The first room was a lounge, with wide, soft-looking couches spread out over it. There was art hanging on the walls, a selection of family photographs on the coffee table. Steve wandered over to look at them, feeling very much like he was intruding.

Truthfully, when Clint had said that he would be taking the Eric’s room, that it would simply be a bedroom. A spacious one, sure, but just a bedroom. Clearly he had underestimated the amount of space that Stark gave his friends – this was a full on apartment, one with a prime view of Manhattan out of full wall windows.

Even the knowledge that he was standing in an apartment that probably cost more money than his mom ever made in her whole life – even adjusted for inflation – wasn’t enough to get rid of the feeling that he wasn’t supposed to be in here.

Quickly, he made his way through to the bedroom. At least, he attempted to – there were a few wrong turns that he made, first discovering the bathroom and the linen closet.

Even though it was still sort of early, he decided that it was most likely best to just get into bed. He was tired enough to sleep, he thought, and there was little else he wanted to do in here.

He undressed quickly, stripping everything off except his underwear. It felt pretty good to take off – his things were caked with blood and sweat, and were practically stiff with it. Putting them on the floor felt wrong, like he’d be making the floor dirty if he did – but he really couldn’t think where else to put them, not when he didn’t know so much as where the laundry basket was.

As he slipped into bed, he couldn’t help but notice the odd sensation of the bedsheets smelling of someone else. It wasn’t even like when he stayed at Bucky’s, and the comforting smell of his boyfriend would be all around him – this time it was wrong, stale. Maybe it was his imagination, since he already didn’t like the guy. But either way, it didn’t make for the best environment to sleep in.

He did his best to ignore it as best he could.

It didn’t work though.

His phone was by the bed, and (reluctantly) he picked it up to see what the time was. The expectation was that it couldn’t be later than ten – it certainly didn’t feel like he had been in bed for that long.

It was a surprise, then, when the time read as midnight already.

Sitting up, he rubbed his eyes. They hurt, like he was tired, and the tight feeling in his chest that signified how tired he was only got worse – but there seemed to be no point in lying back down.

He had read somewhere that the best thing to do if you can’t sleep is to go to another room, to let your brain recalibrate. It seemed like solid advice, aside from the fact that getting up when you’re tired never feels like a good idea.

Nevertheless, he switched on the beside lamp and got up anyway.

Room dimly lit, he picked his way over the floor, past the mess and back into the main room. His legs trembled a little as he did, his exhaustion making fine motor skills a bit difficult for the moment. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling, and he did his best to call up as much of his ‘I’m Captain America and I have unlimited strength’ feelings as possible.

Still, there was no way he could stay stood up for the entire time – and the couches that had looked so tempting earlier were there, he just had to sit on one of them.

He ended up practically flopping onto one of them, like he was a limp piece of spaghetti. Trying to close his eyes and keep them there, he wondered whether he should just try to sleep here – that maybe somehow that would make all the difference and would allow him to get the sleep that he so desperately needed.

It wouldn’t come though – no matter how hard he tried, his eyes kept opening without him realizing it, the worries about what was going to happen with this whole situation filling his head and keeping his brain going without him even realizing that that was what was going on.

During one of these moments, his eyes happened to catch the desk which sat on the other side of the room. Steve wasn’t actually convinced that Eric ever actually used the desk – frankly it looked far too tidy to be a functioning piece of furniture – but the idea of there being illicit things in there was far too much fun to think over.

For a while that was just an idea, something which he wasn’t actually going to do. Steve was willing to break many laws in the name of the greater good, but snooping around someone else’s things really was another level up from just sleeping in their bed.

But as he remembered what an actual asshole the guy was, the more Steve wanted to know what was in that desk. And the more his exhaustion seemed so much less important compared to it.

Standing up, he did his best to ignore the way that his legs almost wanted to buckle underneath him. He’d dealt with feeling worse than this for longer, it wasn’t like he didn’t know how to just deal with things like that.

The room was still dark, something which he regretted as he tripped his way across the room. Granted, it had been a good thing when he was trying to sleep, but it was his foil now – when he needed to be able to move without beating up his shins.

Fortunately there was a desk lamp on the desk itself. Fumbling for the switch on its cable, he was relieved when it turned on and blinded him a little.

Studying the surface of the desk, Steve could find nothing of significance. It really would seem that Bucky’s claims of people not really writing anything by hand any more were true – everything on the table was typed up, very clearly printed out. Some of them were as simple as being personal memos, which seemed like a very inefficient thing to do.

The tidiness of the top of the desk very much led Steve to believe that the interesting things – and probably the bulk of Eric’s paperwork – probably lay in the many, many drawers in the desk. That was what had got his attention in the first place – the fact that you could store so much in a desk that big.

But where to start?

The obvious place was the top, and to work his way down.

At first all he could find were copies of mission reports. It was disappointing, really – although technically there were probably some classified details in there that he couldn’t have found out anywhere else, none of them interested him. There were no details of their regular missions which interested him, no information in there that he needed.

(He ignored the fact that he didn’t _need_ any of it, not really.)

There was one thing that he found that made him particularly angry. A collection of interview transcripts, clearly sent to him out of courtesy. Some of them had been conducted by people whose names Steve didn’t recognize, and those didn’t particularly stand out – but there were at least five with the name ‘James Barnes’ emblazoned across the top.

Logically Steve knew that Bucky had met Eric before. What with how many times it had been brought up, it was definitely something he should have thought of before. But it was only now, seeing evidence of it in Eric’s room, that Steve realized that Eric should have recognized Bucky. Should at least have had an inkling of who he was, aside from being someone his attacker was familiar with.

Goddamn it.

Hurt and rage filled Steve again, only muted slightly by his tiredness. How could Eric have done something like that to someone he recognized? He might have been hydra, but surely people he knew would be exempt from the rule that they had to be assholes to everyone?

He looked down at the transcript at the top of the pile. It was dated only a few months ago.

JB: So what was your favorite part of the aid mission in Australia?

EM: Oh, the fact that we were able to bring so many supplies with us, for sure. We weren’t sure whether anybody else was going to be able to bring anything else, so we made sure that we brought as much as we could fit in the plane.

JB: But what about the heroics you performed there?

EM: Oh, you mean the way Tony lifted the beam off the little girl? Yes, that was quite –

JB: No, no, what you were able to do, when you nearly got attacked again?

It continued like this for many more pages. Steve was always proud that his boyfriend was so intelligent, always knew exactly what he was talking about – but to imagine that being used in the service of this monster was terrible.

He put them down on the desk, and kept searching.

The next few drawers yielded few results too.

The bottom drawer appeared to be more of the same, at first. There were more reports, a book on battle strategy, and Steve leafed through them, more and more disappointed as he did. He had been so sure –

‘Messages for agent Eric Moore from agent John Garrett regarding his last mission:

_You claimed that getting away from Fury was too difficult this time, that there was no way for you to go plant that bomb. That excuse will work this time, but not again, not when you failed in your last one again.’_

It appeared like it could have been official Shield business. It was simple, clearly printed out on a home computer – the only thing giving it away as being not that was the fact that it talked about ‘failing at planting a bomb’. While good people were capable of doing such things, it seemed incredibly unlikely that Captain America would be tasked by Shield to kill civilians.

After that point it was like an avalanche of evil – he struck gold with this drawer. It was like Eric’s drawer of filth, where everything that shouldn’t have existed was. There were mission reports which contained the same details as the ones from earlier, but with the details twisted, the point of view from someone who only wanted to promote civilian suffering.

It also wasn’t a surprise that many of Eric’s fights with various terrorists had all been acts. That it had all been arranged to make him look good.

What was surprising was just how long this had been going on. All of these documents were dated, and the earliest one Steve could find was from 2001. The same year that he had _become_ Captain America.

He had assumed that Eric must have been corrupted by some sleeper agent in Shield. That it would have been a long process, that he would have needed a lot of convincing. That at the start he would have been a good man.

Clearly not.

Every nice thought that Steve had had in the past about the people who had chosen his successors was immediately null and void.

He couldn’t take any more of it for tonight. Why he had decided that he needed to torture himself with more proof that Eric was a bad person he didn’t know, but it had certainly tired him out.

Not bothering to put any of the papers away – it wasn’t like Eric was about to come back and get mad at him for it – Steve turned away from them in disgust. With a heavy heart, he went back to bed, turning off lights as he did, wanting to forget as much of what he’d just learned as he could.

**

Scratchy sheets.

That was the first thing Steve registered in the morning. They were scratchy against his cheek, making his nose scrunch in discomfort. “Whass goin on Buck?” He asked sleepily, reaching out one hand to touch his boyfriend.

Arm completely outstretched, Steve found nothing more but uncomfortable, itchy bedsheets.

Confused, his eyes opened – and then he remembered where he was. And why he was here.

Up until that point, his mood had been fine – and it was remembering the horrors of the day before which sent it plummeting down again.

Even though he was still tired, he sat up immediately. He felt entirely gross – but that physical feeling couldn’t hold a candle to the fact that knowing Bucky was probably being tortured right now.

Having daylight hit the room didn’t make it look any better than it had last night in the twilight. It was messy – and that wasn’t even counting the clothes that he had left on the floor. Clearly Eric left plenty of things around a lot – maybe a result of the rushed life he probably did, or maybe a part of the way he _liked_ to live.

Some part of him was urged to tidy it up. His mother had made sure that he was willing to make sure that the place he was in was tidy – and in some ways it would seem to be a ‘fuck you’ to Eric.

But he didn’t want to feel like he was doing a good thing for the man.

Besides, he had more important things to do.

Taking a shower was the most wonderful thing he could have possibly done. The feeling of the grime melting off of his skin and hair was absolutely wonderful (the water at the bottom of the shower tray began to turn grey, and he wondered how he’d actually been able to get to sleep with all of this on him).

Nobody had come to see him by the time he got out the shower. Although it felt odd to do, he knew that he couldn’t get back into yesterday’s clothes. Even if he had wanted to, they were far too muddied to get back into without undoing the work of his shower.

So, unable to do anything else, he went to the extensive wardrobe that the guy had. After last night, he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to take anything from him – but if he wanted to be clothed at all today, then he would need to get clothes from somewhere.

You could tell this was the wardrobe of a rich man. Steve didn’t know how much Shield had paid him, but clearly it was more than he ever was – he could see that plenty of them had big brand names on them, both in suits and more casual clothes. He didn’t know whether Eric actually wore these ones regularly. The person to ask about that would be Bucky. And he wasn’t exactly around right now.

Fortunately, there was a section to one side which had fewer expensive clothes in it. Hoping that he was going to find something that would fit him, he rustled around in there, flicking through the t-shirts and pants hanging up in there.

Well, nothing caught his eye, so he picked out a random combination of clothes. Dropping his towel and pulling them on, he was pleasantly surprised to find that they fitted – at least, well enough to be able to wear them. The pants were a little too short, but there was nothing that could really be done about that.

Now that he was dressed, his thoughts turned to food. There was a kitchen to the side of the main living room, and with trepidation he walked over to it. He actually had no idea how much Eric was ever actually in here – and he wasn’t hopeful of finding much edible food in there.

It was with surprise that he opened the fridge to find a wide variety of foods there. Some of them were so fresh, judging by the best before dates, that there was no way he could have put them in there himself – leading Steve to wonder whether the man got other people to do it for him. Not exactly the best look for him.

Making himself a simple ham sandwich (maybe Eric didn’t buy his own groceries, but that didn’t mean that any of this stuff had been bought for him), Steve did his best to eat as quickly as he could.

He checked the time – it was nearly 8 already. He’d slept for a long time, clearly.

The fact that he _still_ hadn’t been contacted by anyone worried him as he ate. The taste of the sandwich barely registered with him – his thoughts were entirely occupied by the idea that perhaps the others had gone on without him, had decided that they didn’t need him after all. While his priority, of course, was finding Bucky alive and well, a large part of him still wanted to be part of the force that would bring Eric down and to justice. To be left out of that task force would be unfair, as far as he was concerned.

He had very little willingness to stay in this room once he’d finished eating. Once he’d established that he had all of his belongings with him (minus the clothes, which he left as they were likely unsalvageable), he headed out of the door.

Remembering that Jarvis was a thing he had now (it was like having google, but better), he said, “Jarvis, where is Tony Stark right now?”

Part of him expected that he wouldn’t be authorized to know the answer to that. Instead, Jarvis replied, “he is currently in his laboratory. Would you like to go there now?”

Surprised, Steve nodded in response.

Without him having to say anything more (and something that made him realize that Jarvis could _see_ him in some way), the elevator opened down the corridor. “Very well.”

Steve hurried into the elevator (mostly out of instinct in thinking that elevators would close before you could get to them). Like yesterday, it began to move without him having to do anything – going further up again. It was this that made Steve realize that Stark’s lab must be a part of his personal quarters – and that he must technically be interrupting right now.

And so he began to speak. “Jarvis, if Stark is busy right now then –“

But it was too late – the elevator had already begun to slow. “Take the second door on your right, Captain Rogers.” Jarvis almost sounded smug, like he already knew what was going on. “Mr Stark will be expecting you.”

In half a mind to turn back and not bother with any of this, Steve walked out of the elevator. This corridor was much bigger than the one that he’d just been in, in every way – much wider, but also with the ceiling much higher. It gave it a grander scale, a sense that Stark had planned out what floor his lab was going to be on.

The second door on the right ended up being further down the corridor than Steve expected. Clearly all of the rooms here were huge – after he passed the first door, he walked for at least another minute before he came across another one.

Thinking that he must have made some sort of mistake, he took a look down the corridor before he did anything else. There was only one other door on this side so far – and assuming that Jarvis hadn’t been pranking him, this must be the right one.

The first thing that he knew upon opening the door was that the rooms had to be soundproofed. There was no way it wasn’t, not when the room was so _loud_.

Not in the way he might have expected it to though. Stark was most well known for his engineering, like his father – and it was clear that for the most part, this room was known for being the center of creations, with machinery laid out in bits all over the shop.

This time though, the noise came from Stark shouting incessantly.

“What do you mean you can’t get through? You’re meant to be able to get through anything, I designed it that way!”

Steve heard Stark before he saw him. Assuming that the man had to be on the phone, talking to someone else, he entered silently, not wanting to disturb him. But as he moved further through the room, he caught a glimpse of Stark through the mess.

Both of his hands were fisted in his hair. He looked harrowed, stressed – his face was reddened, and there were dark bags under his eyes.

“I’m sorry sir, but I simply cannot break though the firewall.” That was Jarvis’ voice, as disembodied as ever.

That explained who Stark had been talking to then.

“But we only need access to a small portion of Shield’s files,” Stark groaned, leaning one hip against a table. “It’s not like you need access to all the servers.”

Steve couldn’t stay hidden for any longer. The meaning of the conversation was suddenly very clear to him – it was the conversation they’d had last night, about seeing if they could get into Shield’s files to find out where Eric was. Walking around the corner of the table he’d been ~~hiding~~ hidden behind, he said, “can I help?”

Stark jumped about two feet in the air. Spinning around, he clutched one hand to his chest. “Oh god, I didn’t even know you were in here. Jarvis, why didn’t you tell me he’d arrived?”

Jarvis’ only response was, “my apologies.”

Frankly, Steve was getting the feeling that Jarvis did whatever he wanted to, no matter what Stark thought. “Sorry,” he said, walking closer. “But what’s going on, exactly?”

Stark shook his head. “I should wait until Nat and Clint get here,” he said, seemingly mostly to himself. “I don’t want to explain myself multiple times.”

Steve blinked. “Oh – okay, well, is there anything I can do?” Stark’s general attitude was beginning to get on his nerves, but he couldn’t afford to make him mad, not when he was depending on Stark to help him get Bucky back.

Stark regarded him for a moment. “No, I don’t think so,” he said finally. “Everything I’m doing is all on Jarvis so far. He’s much better at it than I am, and that’s saying a lot.”

“Well is there _nothing_ we can do?” Steve asked. Privately he wondered how it was possible that Jarvis could be doing such high level stuff while managing to do all of the little things too. To listen to him, you wouldn’t think that he was also trying to hack into Shield.

Stark shook his head. “Not really, but I suppose we should move over to the computer so I can show you all what we _do_ have.”

He began to walk away, towards the other side of the lab, and belatedly Steve realized that he should probably be following him.

The fact that this place was massive was only shown more by the fact that it took a few minutes for them to wind their way through the lab. Granted, there were more things in their way than there had been in the corridor, but that didn’t really excuse it very much.

As they walked over, Stark began to talk to himself. It was difficult to tell what he was actually talking about (although he thought it was something to do with algorithms) – but Steve wasn’t concerned about that, more the fact that he was talking to himself at all.

In fact, it took him a few seconds after he realized that to notice that Stark had on the same clothes that he was wearing yesterday. That wasn’t a massive deal in itself, but given that he must have a literal ton of clothes to choose from – being rich and all – the chances that he would choose to put on the clothes that he’d been wearing yesterday seemed a little low.

Still, at least Steve was sure that he knew what they were walking towards. Stark had said that they needed to be at the computer – but Stark stopped in the middle of the room, with no computer in sight.

“Is this it?” Steve asked, frowning.

Stark jumped a little, turning to look at him. “Oh, right, I forgot you were here. Yeah, if Jarvis finds anything useful it’ll pop up here.”

There was one large screen on the wall in front of them, but that seemed to mostly be it for the ‘computer’. The Starktech Steve had seen that one time had been advanced, sure, but he hadn’t remembered being told about an invisibility function.

He looked around. “So when will the others be here?” Steve asked, when he realized that Stark really wasn’t going to say anything until they arrived.

Stark seemed sort of confused by this question, like he didn’t know why Steve would even need to ask that. “Soon,” he said, turning his attention to a hunk of metal that was on one of the tables nearby.

Well, that wasn’t exactly the answer Steve had been looking for.

In order to have something, anything to occupy his mind with, he looked around him a little more. There must be some method to the madness in here, he thought, since it didn’t seem to have any sort of organization. He had no idea how Stark found anything in this place, since there didn’t seem to be any kind of structure to the way that it was laid out. No patterns, no labels, nothing.

It began to mess with his head a little, to be honest.

For this reason (and others, obviously), he felt a tremendous amount of relief at the sound of footsteps echoing their way towards them.

He hadn’t expected to, but he was genuinely happy to see Natasha and Clint coming round the bend towards them.

“Let’s get this started!” Clint exclaimed, seeming fairly enthusiastic about the whole thing. Why that was the case, Steve didn’t know, but he wasn’t sure he liked it.

Natasha stayed quiet, making her way directly to Stark. “Your message didn’t say much,” she said. “Do we have the info or not?”

Stark blinked – and everyone in the room stared at him, waiting for an answer. It took him a second to snap out of it – odd, since it was such a simple question to answer.

Eventually he cleared his throat, dropping the metal he’d been toying with and moving over to where he had claimed the ‘computer’ was (aka the middle of the floor, an empty space). “So, here’s the thing,” he said, scrubbing one hand over his eyes. “I spent all night working with Jarvis to try to get access to Shield files. It would seem that even files that I thought we already had access to, ones which Fury has definitely let me get at before, are being blocked by – by something. That’s not entirely surprising, that hydra would want to restrict access to these things, but what is strange is that I _can’t do anything about it_. Everything we’ve tried has failed. No matter what we do, the block adapts, and stays where it is, and it’s like it knows what we’re doing. Like they’re somehow knowing what we’re doing, and trying to anticipate our moves.” He chuckled humorlessly. “I wouldn’t have thought that hydra had any intelligent people on their side at all.”

Steve watched as Natasha began to frown. He himself hadn’t understood much of the talk, but it would seem that she knew exactly what he was talking about. “You’re sure you’ve tried everything?”

Jarvis was the one who answered. “Yes, Miss Romanov. No stone has been left unturned; I assure you I have done everything in my power to attempt to get into the Shield servers.”

Stark held one gesturing hand up in the air. “You see? We really have tried our best, and there’s nothing I can do.”

Clint hopped up onto one of the tables, crossing his legs. “I like the sound of none of this,” he said. “What are they keeping from us? Are we even sure we want to know?”

“Well I do,” Stark said firmly. “And I can keep trying, but I’m not sure what good it will do.”

Steve wasn’t sure whether he should say anything – encouragement, maybe? – but he ended up not having to.

Instead, Natasha stepped forward. “Can I have a go?”

Momentarily, this seemed to stump Stark. Clearly he hadn’t ben expecting this at all – but he waved a hand at the wall, and said, “be my guest.”

Somehow Steve was surprised when a hologram computer appeared out of thin air. He’d heard from Bucky that Stark had helped Shield develop that tech, but it still didn’t seem real.

From this position it was all backwards, though – and so he moved, walking though a portion of it so that he could see what was going on properly. Clint stayed sat where he was, fiddling with one of his arrows. That was fair – Steve was really just being nosey.

The patterns of what Natasha was doing weren’t clear at all to Steve – but she and Stark seemed to know exactly what she was doing. It seemed very complicated – lots of touching various files, and expanding things, and lines and lines of text (which they called code) which looked like gibberish but clearly conveyed some kind of meaning.

“You’re right, there’s definitely something – or someone – on the other end,” Natasha said, pausing in her attempts. “Jarvis, I’m going to try this –“ she began to type out something long, and continued speaking “- and then you can –“

Before she could finish her sentence, the blue lines that made up the hologram flickered. The conversation that she was having with Stark died out as they flickered again – and this time, the room lights with it.

Steve looked up, wondering if they were having a power problem.

“What’s going on?” Clint asked, frowning as he hopped down off his perch.

Stark ignored all of them. “Jarvis, talk to us,” he demanded, walking over to the wall and checking something on there.

A grating, shrieking, metallic sound reverberated around the room, too loud for comfort.

All of them tensed – and the room went dark. The hologram computer was gone, the lights were off, and all the background humming noises were gone.

For the first time since Stark had said that there was someone on the other end keeping them out, Steve felt a stab of fear.

Then a small amount of white light began to glow from behind him. It illuminated the fearful faces of the others – Steve got a real good look at them from his position at the back of the room. They were all looking at whatever was on the screen.

Steve wasn’t sure that he wanted to know what was on that screen – but he turned around anyway.

“You cannot win, _Avengers_.” The voice struck him before the image on the screen really sunk in. It was a familiar one – one which struck dread into his heart.

The figure was grainy, like it had been made far too low quality for the screen that was capturing it. It moved in an uncomfortable way – not quite human, like it was trying incredibly hard to look as realistic as it could be, but couldn’t quite get there. Steve had little knowledge of the ways in which technology looked in the ‘olden days’ – but he knew that this was likely _it_.

Nor could he deny what that face and that voice meant. Who it was.

“Dr Zola,” he said simply, wishing that he had his Shield – or a tangible way to _do something_ in this fight. “Where are you?” None of this made much sense, but he could only assume that there was some sort of attempt at putting them off his trail by making it impossible to see him properly.

“Wait, you know this guy?” Stark asked, speaking for the first time. It made Steve less worried, in a way, to hear Stark acting as though there was nothing creepy going on. Like this wasn’t strange in the slightest, and they’d get this defeated and be home for dinner in no time.

The facsimile of Zola grinned on the screen – or at least, that was what it looked like to Steve. “Oh, Captain Rogers and I have been fairly well acquainted, haven’t we?”

Stark turned to look at him as though all of this was his fault. Steve swallowed, trying to make his mouth less _dry_. “I wouldn’t go quite that far,” he said, trying to stand as heroically as he could. He had no idea if – or how – Zola was watching them, but he got the distinct feeling that they were being watched in some way. “Why did you choose to face us in such a cowardly way.”

Zola began to chuckle lowly. It went on for just slightly too long – just long enough for Steve to begin to feel like he was missing some vital piece of information here. He looked to the side, at the others, for some kind of reassurance. Stark had folded his arms and was frowning, looking very much the same as he had when considering the technical problem from before. Natasha, on the other hand, was looking at him – and she did not look pleased.

“Captain Rogers, surely you did not think that I could hope to live for as long as you have?” The doctor snickered. Steve’s heart dropped into his stomach. Other images began to flash on the screen, replacing the picture of Dr Zola. These showed newspaper articles, glimpses of a past with which Steve was no familiar. The articles didn’t seem to be specifically concerned with Dr Zola – but it did show the fact that he had died as part of Shield.

Good god, who had made _that_ decision? Why did any of them ever think that Nazis could be trusted to be anywhere near such precious work?

By the time that Zola was back on the screen, Steve was fully convinced that they were never going to win and Zola would keep what they wanted to know from them forever.

“So you see, Captain Rogers, I am merely doing what I had to do. But there is nothing you can do now – we have infiltrated every conceivable place. Even your replacement was no match for our persuasiveness – he was easy enough to convince into being on our side. And now that we have taken over your government, we can use the help of the _aliens_ to take control of the entire world!” The cackle that he let out after this was straight from every villain monologue Steve had ever heard.

Natasha stepped forwards. “Not if we have anything to do with it,” she said through clenched teeth. “Why don’t you let us know where your forces are, and we’ll see if you’re as strong as you say you are?”

Zola only seemed more amused by this. “Now why would I do that, miss Romanov?” He asked. “Why, I don’t doubt that there are members of hydra in your precious Avengers building right now. I’m quite sure that if you go outside you will find us – we are _everywhere_.” His grin turned wide, too wide for someone who was feeling genuine happiness. This was something else, the glee of a man who knew that he was winning the game that he was playing.

Stark scoffed. “I doubt that,” he said. “Not with all the background checks my employees go through. It’s just not possible.”

“Oh but it is, Mr stark,” Zola said. “Truly, you underestimate us.”

It was at this point that Steve realized that Stark had been doing something off to the side this whole time. With the glare coming off the big screen, it was impossible to see what it was – but he thought that it was odd, that he wouldn’t be wanting to do something about the villain that was right under their noses.

Hopefully it was a sign that Stark knew what he was doing.

“If you’re dead, then how are you talking to us?” Steve asked, hoping to draw Zola’s attention away from Stark.

Zola sighed. “Ah, if only I could show you the beauty that has been my current body. You see, when I realized I was dying, I knew that my brilliant mind needed to live on forever, to guide hydra in its noble purpose. And so, knowing this, I found a way to house my mind without my body for eternity. _Trillions of bytes of data, all housing my brain_.”

“That’s horrifying,” Clint blurted out.

Steve had to say that he agreed – but he wasn’t about to admit it, not when they were already confronting the madman.

“It’s brilliant,” Zola corrected them. “For a long while I was housed in a military base, biding my time and gently steering the new men of hydra. But, as all technology tends to, my new ‘body’ began to fail, and over the years I have been converted into several types of digital files.” He began to laugh again. “And now I live inside Shield’s servers! I have had access to every bit of information that Shield gathered, ever, and I can change any details on a whim. Some have called me a virus, but I like to think of myself as the true director of Shield.”

Steve saw Natasha stiffen when he said this. Understandable, since they’d just had the information about Fury’s death delivered to them.

“So you see, Captain,” Zola continued, seemingly unbothered by the generally unhappy aura in the room, “I am undefeatable; you cannot get to the information you seek without going through me. Oh, yes, I knew all about what you were trying to do, don’t try to deny it,” he said with glee. In some ways Steve was reminded of a schoolyard bully – someone who took so much pleasure in causing the misery of others. despite knowing what the doctor was capable of, Steve couldn’t help but think that it really didn’t add to his attempts as seeming intimidating.

“I wouldn’t be so sure.” Stark muttered it, so low that Steve was sure that nobody else was meant to hear it.

For a moment, he wondered what he could possibly mean.

Natasha stepped forward. “We can take anything you can throw at us,” she said confidently. “There is nothing that you can do that would make us stop trying to fight you and the rest of hydra, not after everything you’ve done.”

Zola began to laugh. It sounded a little more robotic than it had done before – or was Steve just misremembering? He wasn’t sure.

Then the picture began to flicker. Just momentarily, just enough to confirm for Steve that there was something more going on.

“What are you doing?” Zola demanded, beginning to look angry. “What – no, you can’t! you can’t, I am supreme! I will rule the w –“

The room went dark. The image was gone.

Steve looked around wildly. Was this another part of the game? Was Zola trying to get their guards down, make them think that there was something else at play here?

The lights came back on. “We got it,” Stark said, striding towards the center of the room. “Thank you Jarvis.”

Steve blinked, confused. “Wait, what?”

“He was working on it this whole time,” Natasha said, turning to him. “Dr Zola have him an in with the video connection, and Jarvis was able to exploit it.”

“I –“ Steve had no idea how to articulate his thoughts on that matter. His eyes flicked back to the screen, sure that there had to be some kind of mistake and that Zola would be back any second. There was no way that such an evil man could have been eradicated so easily.

“So what you’re saying is that Jarvis is the world’s most powerful antivirus?” Clint asked, sounding amused.

Steve found it slightly less easy to just laugh at. “Wait, so this whole time Jarvis was doing his own thing?” He asked, unable to let it go just yet.

“Well it wasn’t just him,” Stark said, his chest puffing up. “Did you not notice how hard I was working?”

“That doesn’t matter now,” Natasha said, “what does is that he gave us some good intel there. And, now that we have access to Shield’s database, we know where we need to go.”

“We do?” Steve felt a little lost still, but he thought it best to ignore that for now. Natasha was right, none of that mattered when they finally knew where they needed to be heading.

A new image came up on the screen. It was a map, one with a pulsing green light to the side of it. “Is that where they are?” Steve asked, tensing up.

“I think so, yes,” Stark said. “Hopefully your friend will be there too.”

“Boyfriend,” Steve said firmly. Now probably wasn’t the time to be worrying about details like this, but at the same time it was important to him.

Stark had already turned away from him, back to his computer. “Boyfriend, whatever,” he said, pressing a few keys. The hologram from before popped back into existence, with the three of them in the middle of it.

Moving out of the way, for a minute or two they all watched Stark do… something, which Steve wasn’t convinced had anything to do with the mission at hand.

“I’m going to go get ready,” said Clint, picking up his bow as though he didn’t already look battle ready. “I’ll meet you on the plane?”

When Natasha nodded, he took this as an opportunity, and Steve didn’t blame him for leaving asap, especially with the strange way that Stark was acting.

“Well if they’re being held there, why don’t we head there straight away?” Stark sounded incredibly frustrated, and it really wasn’t helping the group mentality.

“We need to wait and see if Thor or Bruce will respond to our messages,” Natasha said. Stark didn’t seem very pleased by this – when she said this, he scoffed and turned away.

“If nobody minds, I’d like to swing by my apartment,” Steve piped up. It was important to him that they knew that he wanted to do that – it wouldn’t do to be dragged along to the fight without the opportunity to be able to fight properly.

Stark barely spared him a glance. “Sure, sure, whatever,” he said, waving a hand in Steve’s general direction.

The general preparation of their missions seemed to take rather longer than Steve had expected it to. He had expected that, given how often they went on missions, that it would be easy and quick and routine for them to get ready.

It was not to be, though.

Steve mostly just hung around as he watched Natasha and Stark working in unison. Occasionally he saw them pause, then have to delegate – and it was clear that these were the places where Eric would usually have chipped in. part of him wanted to help – but when he didn’t know what they would need him to do. The fear of being in the way was stronger than the need to help, for once.

Eventually they seemed to think that he was enough of a nuisance that they asked him to just go wait in the plane. That was fair enough – and he went to wait nervously in the jet.

Hopefully all the elapsed time wouldn’t have made any difference to the mission.


	12. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And this is the last full chapter! One epilogue to go!
> 
> (Also, it's my birthday today!)

By the time the others joined him in the jet, Steve was a mess of nerves.

“Is it time?” He asked, jumping up from his seat. “Are we going now?”

Stark laughed. “Yes, yes, sit down.”

For a moment Steve didn’t know what was going on. Then Natasha and Clint walked back onto the jet, back in their clothes from yesterday, their ‘hero’ clothes.

Stark and Natasha made their way along to the cockpit. Clint sat down opposite Steve; almost like he was going to keep him company.

“So the others aren’t joining us then?” Steve asked quietly, knowing that there was something he must be missing.

Clint looked almost surprised that Steve was talking to him. He nodded, though. “Yeah, we didn’t hear back from them, so we’re just going ahead with it anyway.”

“Really? I would have thought Stark would have wanted more backup?” Steve asked. It didn’t exactly seem like Stark was the type to altruistically set off to save someone he didn’t know like that. Not that he was about to say as much within earshot of him.

Clint shrugged. “I guess he was just really desperate to get on with it, save some people, do his thing. I think Nat might have been bugging him to do it though, especially since she recognised your man there.”

If Steve had been having a drink he would have done a spit take. “Wait, she _what?”_

“Yeah, she said something about seeing him around when he did interviews? I’m not sure why she remembered him out of all the people that turn up to interview us, but there you go.” If Steve hadn’t known better, he might have thought that Clint barely cared about the mission that they were on. (And by that, he meant that if you were part of the Avengers, you had to care at least a bit about the people you needed to save.)

He would have got round to presuming the matter more, but as the jet slowed to a stop, Steve realised that it was his time to do things. The familiar view of his street greeted him out of the front window, and he unbuckled himself, stretching out as he stood up.

“You have ten minutes,” Stark called after him. “Don’t dawdle!”

Steve didn’t dignify it with an answer. Grabbing his keys in advance, he legged it away from the jet and to the building. For once, he barely paid any attention to the stairs, or the stale air, or the people who passed him, surely wondering why he was in such a state.

The only thing that gave him a reason to pause was the moment he opened his door. The last time he had been in here was when Bucky was still safe, when the world was still normal. There was no getting away from that, no matter how much resented the fact that it was the case.

Making his way though the apartment, and noting that their dirty dishes and clothes were still strewn about the place, he headed straight for his closet. There was no time for him to stop and think about all that he might have lost – after all, if he didn’t hurry up, he might lose it for good.

Pulling out that damned box, he pried it open with his hands. The contents gleamed at him, catching the sunlight beaming in through the still-open curtains.

He couldn’t even take a moment to close them before he stripped off. Remembering how much the costume chafed, he left on his undershirt and underwear, before putting the thick material of his Captain America outfit on on top of them.

It was a familiar feeling – and that old mindset began to take over a little.

Then it was time for the shield. His watch beeped at him – marking nine minutes.

He picked it up. Its weight was familiar in his hands. Perhaps before now that would have felt wrong for him to do so – but after yesterday, after seeing the farce of a shield that had been passing for the weapon until now, there was almost something comforting about it.

He took a moment to admire how well it had survived.

There was no more time to lose.

It was nearly time, and he knew well enough that Stark was being serious when he said that he would leave without him.

He was done being careful.

For once, he was glad that his windows were so big. Hefting the shield with one arm, he opened the window – and yeeted himself out.

Landing on top of the jet probably helped him to not break any bones. Through the cockpit window, Steve saw Natasha’s eyes widen – clearly they had underestimated him.

Taking no time to think about the fact that he was desperate to speed these things up, he ran down the jet and to where the door was. Swinging inside, he felt more like himself than he had in a long time.

He had been wrong when he thought that he could give this up.

“Let’s go,” he barked, not caring that Stark had been taking charge so far. Stark may have had more superhero experience in this age, but infiltrating hydra bases? He had to be the expert here.

Fortunately, despite the clear astonishment on their faces, Stark and Natasha took the order with no hesitation.

Across the floor, Clint regarded him with eyes that were significantly less wide than the others. “You really care about him, huh?” He asked, cocking his head to one side.

Steve frowned. “Well yeah,” he said, thinking that it had to have been completely obvious by now.

“You know we would have gone after Eric even if you hadn’t been here, right?” Clint said, seeming unbothered by Steve’s response to his previous question. “After all he did… it would have happened either way.”

“Would you?” Steve retorted. “He manged to evade you this far. You had no idea about his affiliations even though you _live_ with him, that seems pretty hard to miss to me.”

This seemed to be the thing that would actually rile Clint up. “Well when you’re part of an evil organisation that’s _inside_ the one that you legally work for, I think it’s pretty easy to get away with,” he said, crossing his arms and slouching a little in his seat. “Plus he’s so charismatic, literally nobody even thought that he could be anything other than what he seemed to be.”

Privately, Steve thought that he could bring up the fact that he’d tried to tell Fury about his suspicions – but thought the better of it. Now really wasn’t the time to start making actual divisions between them, not when they were going to have to fight together against the man that had made all this happen.

He sighed, trying to keep the anger that threatened to rear its head at bay. The anger wasn’t for Clint – it was for Eric. “I just mean that it would have been so easy for him to fool you again in the moment if I hadn’t been fighting him,” he said, bringing it back to the original thing he’d meant when he’d brought up that fact. “It would have been so easy for him to just say that he was fighting the aliens, that everything was as you would expect it to be.”

Clint seemed to consider this, anger still rolling off him. Then he visibly relaxed. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said, nodding. “Oh god, can you even imagine if that had happened,” he added, beginning to look slightly horrified. “He did all of this, and he could still have been one of the team.”

Now that was more the reaction Steve had been looking for the first time.

“I know.” He nodded slowly. “I wouldn’t wish that on any of you.”

Fortunately, the plane journey wasn’t very long. Or maybe the jet was just very fast. Maybe both.

Either way, they arrived at the hydra base not long after.

“Are you sure this is it?” Clint called out to the front as they looked out the front window.

There was a pause. “This is where the tracker said he was,” Natasha said weakly. “I – I guess we’ll just have to go out and see?”

“Come on, let’s go,” Stark said, ignoring their clear concerns and beginning to walk out of the jet. His metal suit clanked against the floor loudly – too loudly for comfort. That was okay though – it was sort of comforting, to know that they had a literal man of metal on their side. There was very little that they’d be able to throw at them that iron man wouldn’t be able to tackle.

Steve gripped his shield like a lifeline as he stood up. He had to believe that it was going to be his protector on this journey.

They followed him out of the plane like ducklings after the mother duck. Some of Steve’s bravado from before was gone – mostly a result of the way the outside looked. There was no way they were actually operating a hydra base out of an abandoned barn, right?

Still, he did his best to at least look like he felt that level of confidence. Standing as straight as he could, he found that the more he imagined that these people were in fact his team, his friends, the more confidence he had. For today, at least, they were the Avengers, and they were invincible

Even as they approached the dilapidated barn, there were no noises. The only sound was them walking through the grass, unkept as it was, and the rushing of the wind.

“Do you think they’re in?” Clint whispered. “Should we come back another time?”

Natasha shushed him. “I’m listening,” she whispered back.

Silently, they _all_ listened.

There was nothing. And then –

Movement erupted from behind.

A blur of movement shot towards them, and Steve reacted on instinct alone, catching the perpetrator in a headlock.

Unfortunately, it was impossible to keep them there. Instantly, they wriggled and pulled until they were out of Steve’s grasp, lashing out like crazy.

This time Steve was able to use his shield to defend himself against the crazed moves of someone who was just trying desperately to cause as much damage as possible.

As Eric slowed in his assault – because of course it was Eric – Steve noticed how tattered his clothes seemed to be. He was still in his uniform – and judging by the look of it, he hadn’t removed it at all. He hadn’t thought that he’d done so much damage at the time – but it was practically in shreds, material darkened by the blood staining it.

Steve couldn’t help but think that he had never seen him look less like a hero.

Fortunately, in the next moment Stark’s blasters hit him square in the face.

Looking over, Steve saw the pained look on Stark’s face. Right, this was a lot more nuanced that he’d like to pretend it was. For Steve, he was just another hydra agent, but for them he was a former friend and colleague.

Eric wasn’t down for long – and in the time they spent watching him get to his feet, more hydra agents erupted from the bushes. These ones were dressed a little more conservatively, more like they were actually ready to fight, and had more weapons than just their fists.

For the moment, Steve ignored them.

“How dare you,” he growled, stalking towards Eric. “You could have been so great. And you chose to join hydra instead?”

Eric laughed, wiping blood from the corner of his mouth. “Like you ever really stood a chance against hydra,” he said. “They chose me _because_ they knew I would join them. Why would I have wanted to join Shield? When Charles _destroyed_ the reputation of Captain America, I knew the only way I’d be able to make it great again was to join an organisation that actually _is_ great.”

Steve hit him with the shield again, snarling. “And why do you think that’s up to you?” He asked, holding back only to be able to question him further. “What has Bucky ever done to you?”

“That idiot?” Eric sneered, beginning to breathe heavily. “The way he worshipped me was stupid. Being a hero is a foolish pipe dream – nobody would ever be able to rid of the evil in this world. Much better to accept it, to go where the true power lies –“

“Shut up!” Steve pushed Eric down again, beginning to feel more and more frustrated about the situation. “You’re wrong!”

Somehow, this only seemed to increase the hilarity of the situation for Eric. “You know, I didn’t even recognise him when I took him off the street,” he sniggered. “I just wanted to hurt you. Well, that and to get you here. And then when I realised that I knew him, that he’d been one of my _fans_ … well, that only made it better for me. I tried to get him to see the light while I was at it, but he was strangely stubborn.” He drew in a hiccupping breath. “I’m sure that once you’re gone, he’ll see the light. See what I did before I joined the Avengers, that the world is just better off without superheroes.”

“What did you do with him, you bastard?” Steve tried not to rise to the obvious challenge, to stay sane until he got the information he needed.

When Eric didn’t answer, but began to straighten himself out, as though he was gearing up to fight again.

“Where is he?” This time Steve accompanied it with a quick jab to the face.

Eric still said nothing – but his eyes gave him away, flicking to the barn and back.

Using all the force he could muster, Steve flung Eric in the general direction of Natasha. This whole time there had been a fight raging around them, and he had paid very little attention to it. He would almost have felt bad – but it wasn’t like they didn’t know his priorities here. “He’s all yours!” He called out as he began to run in the direction of the barn. He thought he heard Natasha shout something in response, but he didn’t catch it over the sound of gunfire.

Her expression said it all, though.

Up close, the barn looked even worse than it had before. It really was just a crumbly ruin – Steve couldn’t help but think that it must have been a pretty neglectful farmer who would allow a building to get into a state this bad.

Ignoring the fact that he was likely to contract some terrible disease just by touching the damn thing, he hefted the door open. It was heavy, and he had expected to have to put some effort into it – but it swung open with barely a creak, very contrary to its look.

It was definitely a sign that he was on the right track.

His eyes took a moment to adjust to the dim, dusty light inside the barn. Even his enhanced sight wasn’t good enough to immediately be able to see what was going on.

And, for a moment, he really thought that he had made a mistake, that there was nothing going on after all. Nothing moved inside the barn. Not even the mice that were surely living inside the half-rotted timbers and matt of straw and decay which lay on the ground moved – it was like time had paused for a moment.

Then, very slightly, very quietly, the sound of muffled breathing, labored and pained.

Moving as deliberately as he could, Steve began to walk in the direction he thought the sound had come from. There was so much rusted farm machinery, so many crates blocking the way in a way which felt deliberate, that it was impossible to know if he was on the right track, and he tried to keep an eye out for anything out of place as best as he could.

When he finally caught sight of Bucky, though, all caution was thrown to the wind.

“Buck!” He cried out, rushing to his side. Bucky’s condition didn’t look good – he was bound and gagged, strapped to a chair with his wrists tied to the arm rests. “Are you okay? Did they –?”

He only got out a few questions before he stopped. There was someone else here. He had heard the floorboards creak.

Bucky let out a whimper. Perhaps he had heard it too – his eyes pleaded something up at Steve, but it was impossible to know what.

“Eric told me you’d come, but I didn’t believe you.” The voice came from the shadows, but Steve couldn’t get a good look at who it was, eyes still not adjusted to the darkness. He shaded his eyes with his hands, as though that would provide any great relief, as though it would be the thing that helped him see exactly who it was.

“Why don’t you come out and tell me all about what you thought would happen?” Steve tried. “We can chat about it, and maybe you can give Bucky back?”

From his position on the chair, Bucky shook his head frantically, eyes wide. The sounds of fighting came from outside, filtering in through the wood of the barn. Steve couldn’t tell whether this was a sign that the others were winning or not, but he hoped that they were.

Laughter. “I don’t think I will,” the voice said. Steve watched the shadowy figure step closer, but not close enough for him to make out anything other than a tall, well-built man.

Then a gun pressed against Bucky’s temple. Steve froze. He watched as a single tear trickled down Bucky’s cheek.

How could he have allowed Bucky to be brought into this life? He wondered desperately. Heart clenching, he fought to keep his breathing as even as possible. There was no way he could let this man know how much he had got to him. It wouldn’t do.

But he still couldn’t show it.

“Are you sure about that?” Steve did his best to keep the tremors out of his voice, but he didn’t think he succeeded as well as he wanted to.

The gun got pressed harder against Bucky’s skull. “I hear you’re the one that got Eric so hurt,” the man said, ignoring what Steve had said. “Did you see him earlier? Did you see what you did to him.”

“I did,” Steve said carefully.

“It was bad, wasn’t it?” It seemed that the man wanted something from him, wanted him to admit something, but he didn’t know what that could possibly be.

Steve nodded. “It was.”

The man chuckled. “You know, I bet you don’t even know why we brought you here.” Momentarily, the gun was moved away from Bucky as the man did something – and then it was right back on it.

When Steve made no move to respond, the man simply continued talking. “I don’t think that Eric intended on taking any prisoners,” he said, sounding for all the world like he was having a normal conversation. “But when you dared to fight him – to fight hydra, instead of submitting like you should – well, that made him mad. And then when he found out that you were who you said you were? When Zola looked through our files, before you _killed_ him, and we knew that you had to be telling the truth? Well, we knew you’d come looking for pretty boy here.”

Steve swallowed. “If you’re angry at me, why are you threatening him instead of me?” He asked, trying to stand up straighter than he already was, trying to seem like someone worthy of fighting.

“So that my men would have time to get into position.”

Steve was glad for his reaction times for the millionth time at this point. The metallic twang of the beginning of a gunshot was unmistakable, and he instinctively crouched, holding his shield over himself like a bulletproof umbrella.

He couldn’t hear the bullets rattle off the shield, but he could feel the force that they put into it – and he had to change his stance a little, bracing himself against the seemingly unending rain of bullets they were sending his way. There had to be multiple gunmen, he was sure of it. With so many shots being fired, he was sure that there had to be at least three, maybe four.

Eventually, the shots stopped. Ordinarily he might have chanced it, might have tried to attack those who were shooting at him. But when the person he needed to protect the most was right in front of him, it seemed unwise to leave him alone, especially when there was every chance that they might harm him while he was gone.

Risking glance backwards, he was glad to see that Bucky was looking just fine, albeit still scared. If he wasn’t hurt that was the main thing though – he could be saved if he wasn’t too hurt.

Lowering the shield, he peeked over the top of it. Whoever had been shooting at him seemed to have disappeared into the ether – along with the man who had been threatening Bucky.

Steve knew that he had to take a chance on getting them free before anything else could happen. There were still sounds of fighting coming from outside (honestly Steve wouldn’t blame them for not wanting to fight their friend, but that didn’t mean that it wasn’t still annoying), and he didn’t know how long it might be before that worked its way in here.

He stood, keeping his shield close by. Practically jumping over to where Bucky was, the first thing he did was remove the makeshift gag. It was slick with spit and sweat, clearly having been on him for a significant amount of time – and Steve threw it as far as he could away from them.

“Are you okay?” He asked, grabbing Bucky’s face gently and examining it. Even under the low light, it was clear that he was bruised and in pain, with small nicks and cuts already scabbed over. “What did they do to you?!”

Bucky breathed in a gasping sob. “Steve – Steve, I didn’t –“ he lifted his head, the movement seeming to take more effort than it should do normally, and said, “look out!”

Instinct alone was what allowed him to get over the way that Bucky had changed the topic so rapidly. Instead of the baton hitting him over the head, it hit his arm – still painful, but not as bad.

Bending to scoop up his shield again, Steve planted himself in front of Bucky. Despite his masked attacker using his batons extensively, he still managed to catch most of them on his shield – as well as managing to keep them all away from Bucky, which was the main point here.

There was something oddly comforting in the knowledge that he was able to protect Bucky well by doing this.

When the assaults stopped, Steve had no choice but to try leaving Bucky for the first time. It was a little nerve-wracking – but he wasn’t about to sit here and do nothing, not when there could still be more of them around.

Keeping one eye on Bucky as best as he could, Steve began to creep around the nearest mass of metal and wood.

For a few minutes he thought that perhaps he had been wrong, that there were no more of them in here.

Then he began to hear a voice.

“Ward? Ward, we need you here,” he heard someone whispering.

The tinny response that he heard come back only proved that he was on the phone. “What? No, I’m at the triskelion, I can’t come to jersey right now.”

“But he’s destroying us,” was the hissed response. “We can’t do this without you.”

“Yes, you can. You have to.” Whoever was directing him was clearly the leader of all this – maybe even the leader of the person that he thought had taken charge of this operation – and Steve found himself almost being glad that he hadn’t come here. At this point he didn’t care about fighting everyone that he could, he just wanted to get him and Bucky out of here alive. That was the main thing here.

Taking no time to be subtle about things, Steve burst through the wooden boxes that the man had been hiding behind, leaping over them and throwing a devastating blow at the man’s head with his shield. It contacted with a satisfying crunch, and he went limp, cell phone falling to the floor with a crack.

Looking around, Steve tightened his grip on his shield. Where was the next hydra agent? What was going to come to them next?

There was nothing to be seen. Hurrying back to where Bucky was still in his chair, Steve worried that in his absence, something could have happened.

No, thankfully – Bucky was still there, looking a little more relaxed than he’d been all day.

Slowly, it dawned on him that all of the noise was gone. Everything that had been on the fringe of his perception, all the clattering and gunfire and shouting, it had gone quiet.

Maybe he would have the time do to this.

Dropping his shield, not needing it any more, he ignored everything else that was going on, focussing on. The clanking noise of the shield clattering to the ground made Bucky jump, and whimper a little more.

Steve began to tug at the bonds on Bucky’s wrists. When they wouldn’t untie themselves, he simply pulled harder, until they snapped of their own accord – something which he would never have dared to do around Bucky before this.

Then he moved onto the gag. He had no choice but to be more gentle this time – it wouldn’t do to pull too hard and end up hurting Bucky’s head in the process. Picking the fabric out of Bucky’s mouth, and letting it fall around his neck like a collar, Steve knew that the last thing he had to do was untie Bucky’s feet –

“Steve!” It was somewhere between a gasp and a sob, and Steve didn’t like it at all. Bucky practically fell forwards into Steve’s arms, like he had lost all strength and couldn’t hold himself up any longer.

Wrapping his arms around Bucky, Steve was mostly glad that Bucky was coming to him for comfort. He didn’t say anything about it though. Closing his eyes, he allowed himself to indulge in the soft feeling that came with having his boyfriend be safe. Bucky was solid, and real, and _here_ , and in his heart he knew that he would have gone through a lot more in order to get him back.

“Steve?!”

The shouting of his name broke through their peace and quiet. He felt Bucky tense up at the sudden noise – and in response, his arms tightened, instinct taking over.

When it registered in his mind that it was Clint that was calling out for him, he relaxed a little. “It’s okay,” he whispered in Bucky’s ear. “They’re with me, you’re okay.”

It didn’t seem to make a massive amount of difference – but when Steve let go, and took Bucky’s hand to pull him to his feet, he didn’t complain.

Stopping momentarily to pick his shield back up, and sling it around to sit on his back, Steve looked around once more to make sure that all of the antagonists were gone.

Bucky shot him a watery smile as he took a step, shuffling in the direction of the door. Steve didn’t miss the way that his knees were barely bending, a sure sign that his legs were hurting from being cramped in one position for so long. As subtly as he could, Steve took his hand, squeezing it reassuringly – and it was in good time, too, because a moment later Bucky’s legs gave out, buckling under him. Reaching out, he slipped both of his arms under Bucky’s armpits, catching him before he could hit the ground.

“Sorry,” Bucky muttered, trying to get his feet underneath him. “Sorry, I’m –“

“No,” Steve said firmly. “You’ve been through a lot, let me…”

Without saying anything more, Steve swooped in to pick him up, carrying him like a baby. As he was swung into the air, Bucky squeaked – interesting, considering that he had been picked up plenty of times before. The fact that he wasn’t particularly heavy wasn’t just to do with his strength, Steve thought – it might have had to do with the fact that he probably didn’t get fed at all while he was being held by Eric. The thought made him so mad, especially since Eric had _specifically_ said that he knew who Bucky was. How could anyone do something so cruel?

With Bucky in his arms, Steve was able to move much faster. Taking the fastest path he could, it wasn’t long before Clint was in sight. The other man was shading his eyes, like it would help him to see in the darkness of the barn.

“Hey,” Steve called out, calling Clint’s attention to him. “How did it go?”

It was as he got closer to Clint that he realised how grim the other looked. For most of the times that Steve had seen him, he had seemed vaguely bemused for at least half of it. Perhaps it had led to him subconsciously underestimating him, thinking that he wasn’t truly part of the team – despite the fact that he had seen footage of the original battle of New York, where Clint had definitely been a big part.

“Well we got it done,” Clint said, sparing barely a glance for the fact that Bucky was securely in his arms. He turned, beginning to walk out of the barn. “Tony was a good match for the assassins that Eric sent after us. Natasha managed to get Eric tied up in the end, and I didn’t use as many arrows as I thought that I was going to, so that’s something.” Clint didn’t exactly sound happy about any of it, despite the clear sign that they had done very well, and were well on their way to make everything better again.

Bucky made a disgruntled sound as they began to walk on the uneven surface outside. Steve hadn’t even registered it on the way in, but the grass surrounding the barn was full of holes, and lumps, and generally added to the unkempt look of the whole place. He did his best to keep his arms as steady as possible, but he still probably jostled Bucky a bit too much.

Being the champ he was though, he managed to bear all of it.

Steve didn’t think he had been any more proud of Bucky, ever.

“You really had a bloodbath out here, huh?” Steve said as they skirted around the edges of where the battling had very clearly taken place. The grass was flattened, torn up in places, and stained with various dark materials that Steve didn’t want to think too much about. There were no bodies there, which did surprise him a little – how had they removed them so quickly? – but it was possible, just about, to see where they had lain, the patches of squashed grass in a long, human-like pattern.

Instinctively, Steve did his best to position himself in such a way that meant that Bucky didn’t have to see any of it. Honestly, if he had the choice he wouldn’t look at it either, not when he had seen his fair share of battlefields already in his lifetime.

As they rounded the small amount of trees that had hidden the jet from view of the barn, Steve was surprised to see two of them.

He was even more surprised to see Clint’s reaction to it. “What the – I thought we were taking care of Eric,” he muttered pulling his bow out again. “It can’t be Shield, not when they’re gone…”

With a shock, Steve realised that Clint was right. Whoever had brought in that second jet wasn’t officially sanctioned… and there was every chance that this was another hydra attack.

Looking down, he realised that Bucky had fallen asleep, or at least was napping. His eyes were closed, and Steve really didn’t want to have to wake him up.

He started off slowly. “Hey – hey Buck,” he said, trying to shake him a little. It wasn’t like he could just put him down on the ground – he’d never be able to stand up the moment, it would likely just make him fall over. Bucky’s eyes fluttered. But they didn’t open. “Come ooon,” he said, trying to jostle him a little more. “Wake uuup…”

“Wha…?” Bucky raised an arm, winced, then rubbed his eyes anyway.

“I need you to stand up,” Steve said, trying to tip him up a little. (this whole time he could feel Clint’s eyes on them.) “Do you mind?” he snapped at Clint.

It seemed that this was the point at which he realised that it was strange for him to be just stood there, waiting for them.

Some amount of the tension inside him dissipated as Clint headed towards the jets. He would join him soon – but Clint was almost certainly capable of taking care of himself in a fight.

“Why are you doing this?” Bucky asked as he slithered off of Steve’s arms, grasping his neck for balance as he did.

Steve glanced over at the jets. Clint was gone – but he couldn’t hear any sounds of fighting. That was either an incredibly good thing, or a very bad thing. “Because I might need to fight,” he said quietly, looking back at Bucky.

In response, Bucky yawned widely. Or, at least, that probably wasn’t supposed to be his answer. “Okay,” he said, not seeming able to form a more complicated answer than that. Which, in itself, was worrying. If he hadn’t eaten or drunk this whole time… well, bad things could have started.

Keeping one arm around Bucky, just in case, Steve got his shield back out. “I don’t know who’s over there,” he said, trying to get them to walk as best as Bucky could bring himself to. “So I need to have my arms free just in case.”

Bucky seemed to understand – at least, he didn’t protest as Steve made him hobble over to the jets.

As they got closer, they began to be able to hear voices. Not loud enough to hear what was being said, but enough that Steve was mostly sure that there was no (second) big battle going on in there. Or at least that they hadn’t been kidnapped.

“Stay here, okay,” Steve said, propping Bucky up against one of the jets. “I’m going to go see what’s going on.”

Bucky nodded weakly, and he set off creeping round to the open ends, trying not to make too much noise in case there was some kind of trap.

He didn’t get very far before he began to be able to hear the voices more clearly. Keeping as close to the wall of the plane as he could, in order to keep his cover, he leaned in.

“So you’re really saying that you’re alive? That you didn’t die?” Stark’s voice was loud and obnoxious, like it always was, but was full of disbelief.

An unfamiliar voice answered. “That’s not what I said, but for what it’s worth, yes, I really am alive, and yes, Fury really did leave me Director of Shield. So let me get on with my job.”

“What are we listening to?” Steve jumped as Bucky’s voice came from behind him.

Turning around, he said, “what are you doing here? You were meant to be –“

“I’m fine,” Bucky said firmly, even as he rested his arm against the side of the jet. “This is important, isn’t it? So I should be here.”

Taking Bucky’s hand in his, together they walked – slowly – into the plane itself.

The first thing that was clear was that there was some sort of scene being made here. A middle-aged man in a suit, looking far more like he belonged in an office than in the field, was in the middle of the others, looking like he was being scrutinised.

Steve watched as he was the first one to notice his and Bucky’s presence – and promptly do a double take.

Stark saw him next. “Oh, Rogers, you’re here,” he said, walking towards him. “Got everyone?”

Steve nodded grimly. “I think so.”

“Good. Coulson’s here to wrap things up, even though we really weren’t expecting him to be here at all –“ (at this point he turned and shot him a playful glare – based on that, and what Steve had heard earlier, it really seemed that there was something he had missed) “-and he’s wanting to take it off our hands.”

“I still vote for us punishing him!” Clint piped up.

Steve would have replied – but the next moment, he felt Bucky’s grip increase, and him almost tilt to the side. “Bucky needs to sit,” Steve said firmly.

“Right, right,” Stark said, surprisingly springing into action and taking Bucky over to where the seats were. It was a relief to see him safe at last, even if he was still technically only a few metres away from his captor.

Walking up to where Natasha and Clint still were, he said, “so where have all our assailants gone?”

The two of them shared a glance. “Coulson is going to take care of them,” Natasha said. “Don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing.”

Steve wasn’t entirely convinced, but he didn’t know what he would have done instead. He nodded instead, and said, “I hope I didn’t make too much of a mess in the barn. I’d hate to put a farmer out.”

Coulson snorted. “I doubt any real farmer has owned that for decades. We’ve got records of hydra owning it for a long time. But don’t worry, it’ll get cleaned up too.”

If this was the new head of Shield, Steve already liked him a lot more.

He walked back over to Stark, where the man seemed to be in the process of trying to fix part of his suit while it was still on him.

“So he’s going to take Eric?” Steve spared a glance for the man in question, looking at them belligerently. The duct tape over his mouth didn’t really make him look any more intimidating.

“Yeah I guess so…” Stark didn’t sound exactly happy about it, but he wasn’t arguing with the decision either. “I’m not going to be able to get my revenge on him myself, but I guess if it means he’ll be locked up it’ll be worth it.”

Steve watched as Coulson’s men picked up Eric and took him to their own jet. It was almost uncomfortable to watch – if it had been anyone else, Steve might have felt bad for him. The whole time he glared at them all, as though he was simply mad that he had been caught. Steve sort of couldn’t blame him for that, although he still didn’t understand the motivation anyone would have for doing that.

The way that Coulson said goodbye to the others of the team led Steve to believe that there was some sort of history there. He’d gathered that from the first time he heard them talking, but the emotional hugging really gave the game away on the ‘pretending that everything is professional’ front.

Now that they were away from the battlefield, things began to feel a little bit awkward.

The plane journey back to New York was so quiet that Steve could have dropped a pin in the plane and heard it. Everyone was tired – Steve was certain that Clint and Stark were having a nap.

As they had loaded into it, Steve had made sure that Bucky was sat next to him. He had hoped that they would be able to have a conversation about what had happened – that he would be able to explain himself a bit, to clear the air.

But with Bucky sat down, his eyes closing, Steve didn’t have it in him to disturb him. Assuming that he was just tired, that he needed a rest, Steve thought little of it, despite the tense air between them all in the ship.

Even with the threat of Eric gone, things hadn’t gone back to how they were before. They were quiet the whole time. He couldn’t have tried to talk about it even if he wanted to.

Bucky went to the hospital which Stark had in his tower almost right away. There was nothing obviously wrong with him, but after having been captured for 24 hours, they had thought it would be best to get him checked out.

As Bucky had gone in, Steve had watched him – and Bucky barely looked in his direction, barely paid him any attention.

Despite the fact that if he had tried, he probably could have said something and gone in with him, Steve chose to sit down on the chairs outside the medical wing.

He didn’t know how long he ended up waiting there. His phone was in his pocket, he knew, and he could have taken it out. But what would be the point? There was no one that would be worried about him, nobody who he could talk to about what had just happened.

He kept his head down as many other people passed him by. There was a flurry of action in general – he gathered that there were other people who had been hurt, who needed assistance. If he could have spared the brainpower to think about anything other than Bucky being in there, hurt, maybe he would have seen if there was anything he could do. As it was though, the only thing he could think about was his boyfriend.

He barely registered someone sitting down next to him until they began to talk to him.

“Your hand. Is it okay?”

Steve looked numbly down at his hand. It was reddened, swollen, with a cut on the back... When had that happened? He hadn’t felt that happen, at any point during the fight. “It’s fine,” he said, looking up at the person who had spoken.

Natasha looked back at him, still very much looking like the Black Widow. She had changed out of her leathers (how long had it been that she’d been able to do that?), and yet there was something in her expression that spoke of the battle they’d had earlier. “It doesn’t look fine,” she said, taking his hand in hers, “do you not think you should go get that checked out?”

Snatching his hand away, Steve said, “it’s fine.” It came out a little harsher than intended, but he couldn’t deny that it was how he was feeling.

Undeterred, Natasha stayed put. “Are you sure? Because we’re literally in the place where they treat that sort of thing. If you were going to do it, I’d say do it now.”

Not quite understanding why Natasha was still here, Steve said, “I know. But it’ll heal on its own in a few days. It won’t need looking at.”

Natasha frowned. “Wait, really? It looks too deep for that.”

“You know I have super healing, right?” It was a stupid way to have to word it, but it got the point across. It almost amused him to watch Natasha’s face fill with disbelief and puzzlement – a distraction from everything else, for the time being.

“You mean all of that part was real? I always thought that they were exaggerating when they – when I was told about you as a child.”

“Nope,” he said, “it’s all true. I can’t say it’s the worst thing they could have done to me, but it would take a lot more to hurt my hand permanently.”

Natasha looked sufficiently impressed by this. “I guess that makes you a bit reckless on the battlefield then,” she said, getting the nail on the head.

He squirmed a little, not wanting to admit to how right she was about his general attitude to fighting. “I wouldn’t say that,” he said, “to be fair, this was a special occasion.”

Natasha nodded… but she still didn’t look convinced. “Is that the real reason you’re not going in there?”

Steve looked up. Natasha looked as concerned as she had before. This time, though, it somehow didn’t annoy him. They might not know one another particularly well – it had only been two days, after all – but there was something about her, after having fought together, that made Steve want to trust her.

“No,” he said, sighing and slumping back in his seat, the fight leaving him. “I don’t – I don’t want to have to face Bucky right now.”

“Your boyfriend? Why not?” Natasha looked puzzled. “We just spent several hours saving his ass from hydra, and now you don’t want to see him?”

Steve gulped. How could he explain this without sounding like he was overthinking things? “I – I just think,” he said slowly, “that after everything I’ve put him through – it’s not like he would have been taken if he hadn’t been associated with me – if I’d been honest with him from the start that none of this would have happened – that he won’t want to see me anymore.” He covered his face with his hands. “Did you see the way he wouldn’t look at me earlier? He hates me, I just know it, and I – I just don’t want to have to see it. Not yet.”

He felt a hand slither its way onto his shoulder. “I’m sure that’s not true,” Natasha said softly. “You’ve both been through a lot these past few days, it’s natural that you’d be feeling a bit off. Give him some time before you start assuming that the world is coming to an end.”

Steve sighed again, trying to get rid of the stress headache he could feel forming. “I know I should,” he said through his hands. “But would you blame him if he _did_ hate me? He’d have a pretty good reason to.”

Natasha’s hand stilled, tightening slightly. “Well there’s only one way of finding out.”

For a moment, Steve didn’t know what she meant. Then, “oh – you want me to go see him.” Going to see Bucky. The one thing he really didn’t want to do right now.

“I think it would be the best idea, yes.” Natasha looked completely serious about it.

Everything in Steve screamed at him that if he were to do this, his relationship would be over within the hour.

“You’ll have to confront him eventually,” Natasha reminded him gently. “It’s the right thing to do. And you never know, he might want to talk to _you_.”

Steve laughed mirthlessly.

Standing up, he stretched out a little. He still didn’t know how long he’d been there, but what he did know was that he was stiff, and the window was showing a darkened sky.

Natasha stayed sat down. “I’ll stay here, if you need me,” she said.

Steve shook his head. “You don’t need to,” he said. “You should go relax, you deserve it.” He couldn’t in good conscience allow Natasha to stay here when it was getting late and they’d had a very long day.

“If you’re sure,” she said, still keeping sat. She pulled out her phone – and looked very much like she was pretty settled in.

Turning away, Steve faced the huge glass doors which led into the medical facility proper. Fishing around in his pocket, he found the key card that he had been given yesterday. He was surprised that it had survived everything it had been through today – but then, perhaps Stark made them specially to last. Based on the way that he had seen others use them, he was pretty sure that they could be used to access other places than just their suites.

Figuring that if this didn’t work, he’d try reasoning with Jarvis, he held the card out to the scanner.

The doors slid open silently.

Striding through, and trying not to look like he was as heartbroken as he felt on the inside, he went to the front desk. “I’m here to see someone,” he announced, getting the attention of the receptionist.

Thankfully, she didn’t look too bothered by the fact that he was talking to her still in his beat-up suit. (Admittedly, that was probably less to do with her not recognising him and more to do with the fact that all manner of superheroes probably came through here often.) “Sure, what’s their name?” She asked, looking back at her computer.

“Um – James Barnes?” Steve said, unsure whether he would be in there under his full name or not.

Thankfully he was – and it didn’t take long for the receptionist to tell him where Bucky was, and find a nurse to direct him there. As he was being led away, he glanced back and saw Natasha still sat in her seat. As he walked, she gave him a subtle thumbs up. Surprisingly, it did actually make him feel better.

By the time he reached the room that Bucky was in, Steve had almost talked himself out of it again. Bucky definitely had every reason to not want to see him right now, there was every chance that he was going to ask him to leave anyway.

“Here he is,” the nurse said. “I have to ask you to be as quiet as possible, for the other patients, but other than that you have as much time as you like.”

Steve didn’t even question the lack of visiting times (it did make sense that it might not operate in exactly the same way as a regular hospital). Thanking the nurse, he took a deep breath after she left.

Putting a hand on the door handle, he realised that if he didn’t want to do this, this was his last chance.

Except he did want to do this, he realised.

He needed to see Bucky.

He opened the door. The first thing his eyes were drawn to was Bucky, lying in a crisp, white hospital bed. Looking like he was asleep, eyes closed and perfectly still, Steve didn’t want to disturb him. There was an IV pole next to him, with a line going into him. It didn’t help Steve’s worry that there was something serious going on.

Creeping in, he sat himself in the chair beside the bed. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, but he hardly noticed it.

Busying himself with trying to discern whether Bucky was okay, whether he had any serious injuries, whether he needed serious healing, Steve found it difficult to think about anything else.

Bucky’s phone buzzed.

Steve looked at it out of instinct, more than anything – just that automatic reaction to look at whatever was buzzing. The screen has lit up to reveal the lockscreen, and the messages that were going unread. From the glance of it Steve had seen, it would seem that the messages – and there seemed to be multiple – were mostly coming from Bucky’s sister. That completely made sense – and there was still nothing Steve could do about it. Even with the guilt that came with Becca clearly not knowing that her brother was out cold in a hospital, and even with Steve knowing how to unlock Bucky’s phone, he wouldn’t invade Bucky’s privacy like that.

Especially since he still didn’t know whether they were going to be alright when Bucky awoke.

He did wish that he could stop the buzzing though. It was beginning to happen every 30 seconds or so, with Becca clearly getting impatient with her brother. Steve could see the way that Bucky’s eyes were beginning to flicker, as though he was getting close to waking, and Steve didn’t want that to happen – not when Bucky still needed to sleep and heal.

Bucky’s eyes fluttered open.

Watching anxiously, Steve saw the moment Bucky’s eyes settled on him. The slight intake of breath that Bucky let out said more than he probably wanted it – and yet Steve couldn’t find it in him to be sad about it.

“Hi,” he said quietly, unsure whether Bucky would be sensitive to sounds.

Bucky blinked. “Hey,” he said, his voice rasping uncomfortably.

“Right – you’re probably thirsty,” Steve rushed to say, grabbing at the glass of water which sat on the table next to Bucky’s bed.

Nothing was said while Bucky propped himself up and took a drink. It didn’t feel too awkward, somehow – there were no glares, or avoiding of eye contact. It almost felt normal, but for the fact that they were in hospital.

“How are you feeling?” Steve asked as he put the water back.

Bucky’s eyes widened, and Steve was sure that this was it, that it was over.

“What do you mean, how am I feeling? What about _you_? You were the one that had to actually fight them, I just sat there and let them have their way,” Bucky said, sounding astonished.

“But –“ Steve tried to protest, knowing that Bucky had to know that he couldn’t have been injured that much. Not enough to need to go to hospital, at least.

“I saw you, Steve – you were like a fighting machine, it was incredible – and it had to have hurt, at least a bit. I can’t believe I had no idea you could do that!” Bucky was actually beginning to look excited. Steve recognised that look in his eye – it was the same one he got whenever he was talking about his work.

Steve shook his head. “That’s not important,” he said decisively. “You’re the one that needed medical attention. I mean, really, how are you feeling? How… how badly hurt are you?”

Huffing, Bucky settled back down. “I’m fine, really,” he repeated. “I had some minor dehydration, but they’ve put me on this-“ he pointed at his IV pole “-and I don’t have much else wrong, other than some cuts and abrasions.”

Steve squinted at him. “Are you sure?” He said. “Because it didn’t look like it was that simple when I found you.”

Bucky placed one hand on top of Steve’s squeezing it firmly. “I promise you, once I’ve got some fluids in me and had a good meal, I’ll be back to normal.”

Steve stared at him. in this lighting, with the bright lights coming down and reflecting off of Bucky’s hair, he almost looked like an angel with a halo – and with the way he was acting right now, Steve was inclined to believe it.

“How can you stand to be so nice to me right now?” He asked, looking down at their joined hands. It was a visual reminder of the fact that they had been together – were together? – and yet at the same time it almost felt like it was taunting him. “After everything that just happened – how can you…”

Bucky stayed silent, even when Steve trailed off.

Steve’s heart plummeted like a rock. If Bucky had maybe just been hoping that Steve wouldn’t bring it up, or had been avoiding the subject himself… well, that wouldn’t bode well for what was about to happen next.

His hand was squeezed again. “Look at me,” Bucky said softly, when Steve didn’t react.

Reluctantly (mostly because he was afraid he might start crying) Steve allowed his head to be nudged upwards. Bucky didn’t _look_ angry – but that might not mean he wasn’t about to break up with him.

“I was angry, earlier,” Bucky admitted. “I didn’t understand why any of this was happening. It took me longer than I wanted, I think, to realise that you were actually doing the right thing by fighting Eric yesterday. And – and I definitely didn’t want to accept that you were Captain America.” He chuckled a little, but he didn’t sound like he found it amusing. “I knew right from the start that you looked a lot like him, of course,” he added. “It was part of the reason I approached you.” At Steve’s worried look, he said, “oh, I didn’t actually think you were him, don’t worry – I just thought that it was a weird coincidence, like it was the universe telling me that I should talk to you or something. I guess I got so used to it after a while that I just… stopped really thinking about it. Like, the connection was there, but after I got to know you better it was just your face, instead of ‘Captain America’s’.” (He put that in air quotes.)

“But I still lied to you,” Steve insisted. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

Bucky shrugged. “I think if we hadn’t nearly died, it might bother me more,” he said frankly. “I’m just happy that we’re both alive. I mean, when Eric took me…” he paused to shudder, and Steve didn’t think it was just for dramatic effect. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever felt, I think. It was like harry potter describes disapparating, only a million times worse. It wasn’t instantaneous, there was a full second of blackness where I couldn’t breathe. And then when we arrived in the barn, I thought I was dead for sure, that I’d been killed and was in the afterlife.”

Another wave of guilt washed over Steve. “And I was the one that put you in that position!” He said, beginning to get angry. “If I’d been honest with you, or – or stayed away from the fight, none of this would have happened!”

“No.” Bucky frowned at him. “I would have been disappointed if you’d done anything else, knowing what I know now. Being Captain America is all about helping where you can. I mean – Steve, I’ll admit that I’m not exactly an expert on your life, but even I know that you were so desperate to join the army that you risked a doctor injecting you with god-knows-what in order to fight. That’s the kind of man you are.”

Steve rubbed the back of his neck. “Well I guess you’re not wrong,” he said, slightly flustered. “But I still shouldn’t have gotten you involved.”

“I could have stayed away though,” Bucky reminded him gently. “I chose to go near the danger. Even if you hadn’t been involved, I would still have been near what was going on, I still could have got hurt.”

This conversation wasn’t going anywhere near how Steve had expected it to. “So just to make sure,” Steve said, “you’re not breaking up with me?”

A horrified expression came over Bucky’s face. “No! Oh god, no, what gave you that idea?” Despite the fact that he was still plugged into the iv line, Bucky sat up and gave Steve a hug as best as he could.

Infuriatingly, a tear leaked out of Steve’s eye. Before he could wipe it away, it landed on Bucky’s shirt – and then more came after it, beginning to soak through his shirt.

Bucky pulled back slightly. “Are you… Oh Steve, you didn’t really think I’d – after all we’ve just been through?”

Steve sniffled. “I just thought – this is all because of me, and you didn’t want to talk to me after, and then I realised I should have just told you much sooner. I mean, I let you talk about _me_ , in your research, and I didn’t even say anything then. Doesn’t that make you mad?” His voice was croaky – even if he’d wiped away the tears, there was no mistaking the fact that he’d been crying.

Bucky squeezed him tighter. “I can understand why you did it though,” he said, rubbing a hand up and down Steve’s back. “I mean, I’m not even sure I would have believed you if you’d tried to tell me. Can you even imagine?” He pulled back slightly, enough that they could see each other’s faces. “If you’d tried to tell me, on our first date, that you were Captain America back from the dead, I think I’d have run screaming.”

That managed to wring a chuckle out of Steve. “Yeah, probably. Like, when _would_ have been a good point to mention it?”

Bucky began to giggle to himself. “Maybe at the Smithsonian, you could have stood under a picture of yourself and just pointed between the two until I got it.”

They laughed together for a full minute, Bucky pressing his forehead up against Steve’s.

Heart feeling a million tons lighter than it had when he came in, Steve let out a deep sigh.

“So we’re okay?” Bucky asked. “I promise I’m not mad at you. I’m not going to leave you.”

Steve nodded, burying his head in Bucky’s shoulder. “So long as you’re sure.”

Bucky patted Steve’s hair lightly. “Now we should both get some sleep.”

After trying to figure out how they were going to make that happen, they ended up curled up on the bed together, Steve spooning him and their legs entangled. It shouldn’t have been comfortable – and yet Steve couldn’t have imagined being anywhere else right now.


	13. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to be longer, but it's late and I'm tired, so this will have to do

The bell rang, startling Steve out of his thoughts.

“...okay, don’t forget the reading!!” The professor at the front of the lecture theatre said, as they all began to pack up their things. Steve was a little slower in doing so – he never understood his classmates’ needs to be out of the classroom as quickly as possible.

“So are you doing anything else after this?” Steve turned to look at the person who had spoken to him, a young girl who he knew was far more talented than he.

He shrugged. “I don’t think I’m doing anything in particular. I might go see if Bucky’s free, but I suspect he might not be.”

Marcia shook her head, seeming bemused. “I don’t know how he puts up with you,” she said.

Steve laughed. “Me neither.”

They both put their things away, making sure not to leave anything behind (Steve had done that more often than he would like to admit). By the time they exited the room, everyone else had left. Thankfully there were no more classes on after this – that was always ever so slightly embarrassing, no matter how much it annoyed him to have them judging him for not leaving quicker.

Walking outside, Steve was glad to see that it had stopped snowing. “I thought it would never end,” he said, kicking at the slush by their feet.

Marcia laughed. “I know, me too. I was so worried that the subway would get too crowded and I’d have to spend even longer getting home.”

Steve tried not to grimace too much as he felt wetness seep into his shoes. “I hate this weather,” he said, more to himself than anything. The act of pulling his coat tighter around him was more instinct than anything else, left over from when winter was the worst of the seasons, the one that left him bedridden more often than not.

Plus having a coat on helped to disguise him somewhat. With a bulky coat on, it was more difficult to see his physique, more difficult to identify him by body type alone. It didn’t stop people from staring at him completely, but it did make them think twice about trying to talk to him.

They were having a conversation about how annoying it was trying to walk on ice, stood waiting to cross the road, when Steve’s phone rang.

Freezing in his spot, he pulled his phone out of his pocket with a shaky hand. His phone rarely ever rang. It was only when he had Avengers business that that happened.

The name on the call was Tony Stark.

“We need you, now.” Stark rarely ever bothered with greetings as it was, but on mission days it was even worse. “It’s you know who again.” Bucky always thought it was hilarious when Stark referred to Eric as you know who, but from what he could tell that was for reference reasons.

Steve sighed. Bucky’s building was right across the road. He could almost see the window of the room he was going to be in.

“I’ll be there as soon as possible,” Steve said.

“We’ll pick you up in five.” Stark hung up the phone after that. It was always short, with him.

Steve turned with an apologetic smile to marcia. “I’m going to have to go,” he said. “I’m sorry, I’ll hang out with you tomorrow –“

She nodded, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “It’s okay,” she said. “I get it.” And she did – being the person that Steve spoke to the most meant that she really, genuinely didn’t mind when he had to run off at unexpected hours.

Steve sighed. “Thank you.”

And then he set off at a dead sprint.

It was a difficult thing to do, when the sidewalk was covered in half melted snow, but he had had more practice doing just that than he would have liked. During the course of his unexpected run, not only did he only skid around corners twice, but he only actually slipped and fell once. As far as he was concerned, that was pretty good.

While he ran, people stared. It was entirely possible that it was because some of them recognised him, but it was equally as likely that they thought he was insane for even trying to get up to that kind of speed.

The Quinjet was already there by the time Steve got to the pick up site. It sometimes wasn’t – Steve knew that sometimes thing got complicated, and nobody would be able to come get him for longer than anticipated.

It was better than having to make his own way over to the tower though.

As he approached the jet, the door swung open. Steve heaved himself up, and immediately closed the door behind him. (There was nothing worse than a curious civilian.) “Hey,” he called out, without even looking at who it was that had come to pick him up.

“You know, I wish you’d just agree to stay at the tower.” Natasha’s voice was teasing, but he knew that she really did mean it.

“And you know that I can’t imagine anything worse than living with you guys all the time,” Steve shot back. He walked further into the jet to sit beside Natasha. It was their comfortable arrangement whenever she was the one to come pick him up (which was most of the time), and even knowing what he was going to have to do after this wasn’t enough to make this any less enjoyable.

He put his feet up on the front, where all the controls were. Natasha slapped them away.

“So what’s the sitch?”

**

It was only when Steve checked his phone right before getting home that he realised he probably should have checked it beforehand.

Bucko <3  
If you need to stay at the tower tonight, I don’t mind! Do whatever you need to!

Bucky always managed to be the sweetest. There was a slight amount of irritation towards himself that the message triggered – he needn’t have rushed here then, what with the amount of bruising he had right now. but he’d done it anyway, and it was too late now.

He opened the door.

The room was dark, and Steve’s first thought was that Bucky must be in bed. He tiptoed in – Bucky was sure to have work tomorrow, and the last thing he wanted was to make things harder for him after an already long day.

Steve paused to yawn, wide and almost painful.

His eyes closed a little, and he took a few more steps in, towards the living room –

The tv was on. In the mild glow of its blue light, he saw Bucky, curled up on the couch under a blanket. His eyes were closed, but he was still (mostly) sat up, suggesting that he had probably fallen asleep waiting for Steve.

Guiltily, Steve tried even harder to get into the room quietly. He noticed that the tv was playing the late night news – and the only reason he did was that it was showing his own exploits. That only made him feel even more awkward, honestly. The sound was still on, slightly, and Steve tried to not listen to what they were saying about him.

“…the new Avengers team were successful today in the capture of Eric Moore, former Captain America. Moore was able to evade capture for months by-”

Steve couldn’t stand listening to it any longer. Switching the tv off completely, he decided to take both of them to bed.

Trying to get his arms under Bucky in the most gently way possible, he carried his boyfriend carefully through to the bedroom.

Despite trying his best, Bucky stirred just as Steve was placing him down on the bed. “Steve?” He murmured, his eyelids fluttering.

Steve shushed him. “Go to sleep,” he said softly, carding a hand through Bucky’s hair.

“I saw you on the tv,” Bucky said sleepily, rolling away from him. “Well done.”

Even though there was a good chance that Bucky wouldn’t remember this in the morning, Steve still couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks,” he whispered.

It didn’t take him long to get ready to slip into bed beside Bucky, safe and content.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
